


Forming New Bonds

by 425599167



Series: Truth In Legends [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, Fix-It, PTSD, Physical Abuse, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 58,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24003820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/425599167/pseuds/425599167
Summary: Following the confrontation between Darth Vader and Ahsoka Tano on Malachor, Ahsoka struggles to process and understand what's become of her master while continuing to work alongside Barriss Offee in directing the Fulcrum network. With her continued survival known to Vader, Ahsoka and Barriss confront imperial Force-users and uncover military projects which the two Fulcra must undermine if the Rebellion is to survive.
Relationships: Barriss Offee/Ahsoka Tano
Series: Truth In Legends [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/507609
Comments: 272
Kudos: 198





	1. Dependable

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to [The Erosion of the Spirit](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6688336/chapters/15297046), and if you haven't read it, the short version is that Ahsoka broke Barriss out of prison, she’s part of the Rebellion and co-founder of the Fulcrum network, and also they’re in love. I know that might seem odd considering what happened in TCW, but I wrote 328K words working through everything, if you’re not interested in reading it, trust me that their relationship works.
> 
> If you're coming straight off of TEotS, this story will include several main characters other than Ahsoka and Barriss, rather than be entirely about them. They’ll still be main characters from start to finish, but they’re not the sole focus anymore.
> 
> Something to know about my approach to comments based on what I've gotten on my other work: I love comments, don't hesitate to leave comments. This story is going to go on for many chapters, and if you leave comments on early ones, I'm probably not going to reply to them unless you ask a specific question. I do see those comments, I am not ignoring you, I just prefer to let people get caught up.

**In a quest to learn the secrets of the Sith and obtain the power needed to overthrow the Empire, Jedi Kanan Jarrus, his apprentice Ezra Bridger, their astromech Chopper, and former Jedi Ahsoka Tano journeyed to the graveyard world of Malachor.**

**Following the confrontation between Tano and the evil Darth Vader, the rebel leader has been trapped amongst the ruins of Malachor after proving unable to overcome the dark lord.**

**As the wider Rebellion considers how to recover from the seeming loss of Tano, days pass, and rescue has arrived...**

* * *

The desolate ruins of the Malachor Temple lit up under the landing lights of the _Eclipse_ , practically a whole new world opening up as the round, light freighter descended into the crater and left the barren surface behind. Finding a suitable spot to set the ship down proved complicated at first, the battlefield littered with jagged ruins and stone statues inhabiting every open area large enough for the vessel.

Everything around the temple was dead. The superweapon that lay dormant here, it not only petrified the warriors in the middle of their battle, it killed all the flora and even microorganisms in the soil, leaving a lifeless wasteland for kilometers around.

As the ship’s pilot ran low on patience such that she was considering flattening the stone warriors to make space, she finally discovered a flat area and landed the ship near a pair of TIE Advanced v1s, each of which bore several lightsaber slashes through their canopies to make them inoperable and completely irreparable, preventing anyone from using them to escape the planet.

The boarding ramp lowered, and the modified droidekas which emerge were surprisingly careful as they rolled about the ruins, twisting and bouncing as they traveresed the rough terrain and, one by one, unfolded in preparation for any opponent foolish enough to attack them. Their bronze armor bore considerable black paintwork distinguishing them all, though the most obvious upgrade they’d all been equipped with was their rear leg being removed and replaced with a new joint that bifurcated and made them quadrupedal, with expected increases in speed and stability.

The area now secure, their master followed from the ship, sinking her boots into the dust of Malachor, the mantle around her shoulders and shin-length skirt rustling in the breeze.

Well, perhaps she wasn’t the droideka’s ‘master’, exactly, but she was a close second for the designation. It was no secret knew who the droidekas’ favorite was, as shown by the symmetric lines and diamonds on each of their head plates.

“Fan out,” Barriss said, the ship’s astromech rolling up behind her. “Move in pairs, and signal me the moment you find anything. Cici, try and get whatever data you can off of the computers in those TIEs.”

The droidekas whirred and clicked their affirmations before contracting and rolling away, each duo moving in one of seven different direction as they combed the area. Those droids were more than capable of handling themselves against any agents the Empire left behind, and unless the Sith Temple was truly abnormal in some way, they’d be immune to the influence of the dark side nexus here.

With the holes in the TIEs’ canopies, there was no getting off-world with them. Even the survival packs had been removed and burned, their rations and water lost. There was one set of landing gear imprints in the dust, indicating a third TIE now missing. Someone else must have taken it, because if Ahsoka had left the planet she would’ve signaled Barriss by now.

“You sure she’s here?” asked CC-7, or ‘Cici’, the _Eclipse’s_ quirky, often eagerly destructive astromech. Rolling around the landing site on the wheel assembly that comprised most of her body, the little teal and white droid didn’t exude confidence in their mission, and found the TIEs’ computer systems utterly wrecked. “I can’t pick up any life signs. No indicators of working technology, no heat, no food sources. Even if she was here last, she must have moved on to another area of the planet if she wanted to survive.”

“Ahsoka is here,” said Barriss sternly, “I can feel it.”

“Could your ‘feelings’ perchance provide a _direction_?” asked Cici.

Barriss sat down on the dusty ground of the ruins, then closed her eyes and tried to sense any life in this desolate place. There wasn’t much. Malachor was a graveyard world, the center of ancient battles leaving nothing but the echoes of death. At this site especially, the dark side was strong, a remnant of the power the Sith once held here, and the terror they inspired.

There was someone still alive here. There had to be.

“This way,” replied Barriss, getting up and heading towards the pyramid at the center of the underground chamber. A freezing storm was coming across the land, the temperature dropping. Tightening her coat and her hood as the cold breeze blew at her, Barriss refused to leave until she’d located Ahsoka.

Amidst the darkness, too far to clearly distinguish, something pale green and white glided through the air, down into an opening at the base of the pyramid, prompting Barriss to increase her pace.

"There was something over there," Barriss said.

"I didn't detect anything," Cici said, grumblingly adding, “Ah, you’re having us check out the largest structure in the area. _That_ sure narrows it down.” 

Once they reached the base of the pyramid, Cici shined her light into a staircase they discovered leading down, completely dark and worn by erosion over the millennia.

“Ahsoka is down there, and I will retrieve her on my own. Return to the ship and coordinate the droidekas,” Barriss said, activating her lightsaber and illuminating the steps with its bright orange glow.

“You know, with all the weird antiquated tech this temple is made out of and the depth of that entrance, you probably won’t be able to radio for help. I’m not good with stairs, but you could carry me, I can boost the signal to the droidekas,” Cici grudgingly explained, not eager to risk getting knocked around or dropped.

“Perhaps,” said Barriss, the endless blackness of the temple being discouraging to her as well. “Then again, do you really want to join me in fighting off something capable of hurting Ahsoka?”

“Not at all,” replied Cici as she turned around and rolled away. “Good luck.”

The descent began, and Barriss contemplated how deep these stairs could go. If the underground section mirrored the pyramid above, the staircase would only carry her so far, perhaps several stories. Then again, it could also extend further than the combined structures on the surface.

Mercifully, this staircase was shorter than it could have been, the light of Barriss’s saber illuminating an end to it and an exit coming up on her left. Increasing her pace, Barriss turned and entered an underground chamber dimly lit with red and violet, her gaze turning upwards to see an enormous corrupted kyber crystal suspended ten meters above her, the heart of the weapon which cause the Great Scourge of Malachor.

It appeared that even the greatest monument of Sith power could not eradicate all life. There were vermin down here, small, fuzzy, six-legged creatures with light blue eyes which scurried away as Barriss walked onwards. There were also patches of lichen that subsisted on the light of the crystal, and fungi which existed in a mutualistic relationship, and those small animals feeding off both in turn. The Sith weren’t foolish enough not to at least attempt to protect themselves from their own weapon, creating this shielded area, and in doing so had allowed other organisms to outlive them.

The levels beneath the temple contained the mechanisms for the weapon above. Fitting with the pyramidal design, this room was square, roughly symmetric along two lines, with a command area at the center of the room, further sunken into the floor in contrast to typical Sith design of literal and metaphysical elevation above others.

Stepping down to inspect this command center, Barriss found there were lightsaber slashes through many pieces of equipment, cables cut off, consoles demolished. Ahsoka had been here, making sure that if the Empire arrived, it wouldn’t be able to make use of this weapon. It wasn’t clear to Barriss how the weapon achieved its petrifying effect, though she was confident it would never be fired again.

 _Where are you now?_ Barriss wondered, her attention shifting between the command center’s various exits, wondering which one Ahsoka had left through, and why. With the symmetric design, it was likely any two exits would eventually lead to the same place. Better to simply pick one and get on with it.

Climbing back out of the sunken platform, Barriss jumped when Ahsoka appeared in front of her.

Or so it would seem.

Barriss knew Ahsoka. She could feel Ahsoka, even now.

Whatever this was, it was not Ahsoka.

“...Hello,” Barriss said uneasily. “I’m searching for the real Ahsoka Tano. Can you help me?”

The Not-Ahsoka stared at her for a moment, smiled, nodded her head, then turned around and walked out through one of the exits, disappearing around the corner into the shadows.

During that little display, Barriss had watched silently, not exactly encouraged to follow that phantom's lead.

Unfortunately, a moment earlier she’d settled on going in that direction anyway, so after a few deep breaths and waiting a moment for her heart to slow down a bit, she raised her saber and followed, coming to a staircase that took her down another level.

This new floor was in even worse condition than the one above, the walls broken apart to show the surrounding stone, partly flooded with groundwater those vermin from earlier could be seen drinking from. This area appeared to store secondary systems of the weapon, coolant, computer banks, and the like. Expansive and crowded with ancient machinery.

Leaping between dry, elevated platforms, avoiding the inconvenience of the water, Barriss occasionally paused to trying and sense of where Ahsoka was. Her senses were muddled here in a way she hadn't experienced in a long time, echoes of the countless dead, Jedi and Sith alike, obscuring everything with suffering and fear.

Still no sign of Ahsoka, but between the animals and the water, this was more than sufficient for someone with her survival skills to endure for several days.

 _She has to be around here somewhere, all I need to do is... Um..._ she lost track of her thoughts as the room suddenly seemed brighter, the cramped underground facility vanishing into an expansive hall supported by rows of pillars.

 _UM,_ her mind sputtered as she found herself standing in the Great Hall of the Jedi Temple, masters and knights walking around, meeting with regiments of loyal clone troopers.

“Barriss, are you coming?” asked Ahsoka, as Barriss turned around to see her as she’d been during the early days of the Clone Wars. Glancing down, Barriss found her own appearance appropriate for the time.

“...Ahsoka?” Barriss asked, trying to determine whether this was the real one, another projection, or something in between.

“Come on, we need to get to our shuttle,” Ahsoka said with an eager smile, waving for Barriss to come with her as clones of the 501st legion marched past her.

“Wait up, Snips,” Anakin Skywalker said as he walked up and stood behind Ahsoka. "Have you seen Obi-Wan around? I've been looking everywhere, but I can't find him."

"Was he not in his quarters?" asked Ahsoka, as Barriss observed this unsettlingly ordinary conversation.

"That was the first place I looked for him," Skywalker said, a little annoyed. "It doesn't matter, I'll hunt him down eventually."

By this point, Barriss understood what was going on perfectly well. This temple had Ahsoka ensnared with an illusion, and Barriss had to compliment its effectiveness. Unfortunately for it, Barriss had become progressively less susceptible to illusions devised by the Sith, and would not be taken in.

“Come, apprentice,” a familiar voice then said to Barriss.

Those two words with that voice made Barriss instinctively snap to attention, then relax slightly as she realized what she'd done and chided herself for it. It took all her effort to turn away from Ahsoka and see their source.

Luminara was coming down the corridor, Barriss’s hesitation having drawn her attention.

“Hello, Ahsoka. Barriss, we need to prepare for our own departure,” she said, pausing as she saw Barriss blankly staring at her, heart pounding too hard to hear clearly. “Barriss, are you listening to me?”

Barriss snapped out of the daze, ignoring Luminara in favor of urgently asking, “Ahsoka, I have come to rescue you from Malachor. Can you remember nothing of what's happened?”

“Barriss, what are you talking about?” asked Luminara, and Barriss was torn over how to respond, dependent on whether this illusion was a mouthpiece of the Temple, or some genuine memory. Unfortunately, acting as though it was the latter would be even more dangerous to her than the former.

“My discussion with Ahsoka is not your concern,” she replied, her hard-earned confidence reasserting itself, glancing at the image of her master in time to see a momentary flash of the desiccated corpse the Empire had transformed her into, making Barriss wince in revulsion.

“I beg your pardon?” said Luminara, exchanging a look of concern with Ahsoka.

“What are you talking about, padawan?” Skywalker said to Barriss.

“ _You_ keep your mouth shut,” Barriss replied, focusing on Ahsoka. “You can’t stay here. I have no idea where your body is or what your condition is. I know in this time you felt happier-”

“Of course I’m happy. Barriss, why are you crying?” Ahsoka said, no longer smiling like she had been.

Barriss chuckled dryly as she felt the tears coming down her face, taking a few slow breaths. “I am the perfect person to shatter this place,” she said to herself, smiling through the tears as soldiers walked through the temple, led by their Jedi generals. The ongoing effort to end millions of lives across the galaxy. A Sith plot to extinguish the Jedi. “It’s a good thing, really. No matter what memory of this time I am placed in, this place will _never_ be able to keep me content.”

"Barriss, are you feeling all right?" asked Ahsoka. Behind her, Skywalker flickered into an enormous, dark, masked figure looming over Ahsoka, a red lightsaber held and the level of her neck, and Barriss smelled smoke as the temple burned around her.

"Never felt worse, Ahsoka," Barriss said monotonically. "Ahsoka, how do you believe the Clone Wars will conclude?"

"The Republic and Jedi will win. I'm sure of it," Ahsoka said casually, though Barriss could hear the confidence in her voice slipping.

"Imagine it for me. How do you envision the end of the Clone Wars?" asked Barriss.

The clone troopers, for a split second, suddenly had their helmets painted orange with Ahsoka’s white markings, all of their weapons trained on their Jedi. Then they returned to attention just as instantly, their armor blank. 

"Probably with Dooku and the Separatists leaders captured, I don't know!" Ahsoka said, getting agitated.

"Do you believe you'll be made a knight by the end?" Barriss asked as she reached out to Ahsoka, seeing the interior of Ventress's helmet flickering around her head and drawing her hand back.

"I- I hope so," Ahsoka repeated, tensing up, her padawan braid disappearing. The whole world shuddered as Ahsoka uttered her words, the environment distorting for a few seconds, then resetting.

This was agonizing to watch, as Ahsoka shut her eyes as if fighting a stabbing pain in her head. This wasn't working, what Barriss said only caused more pain. 

"Ahsoka, do you remember the first time I told you I loved you?” Barriss asked, taking Ahsoka’s hands and tugging her away from Skywalker. Ahsoka was crying now as well, and Barriss could feel her hands shaking. Memories were coming back to her, and she replied with a nod. “I won’t fail you. Not this time. It's going to be all right, however I need you to put your trust in me, and follow.”

“Barriss, I, I think something's wrong with me,” Ahsoka said.

 _“You_ are wonderful, _this place_ is what's wrong,” said Barriss, placing her hands on Ahsoka’s shoulders as the light in the Great Hall faded away around them. “I am taking you home.”

Back in darkness, Barriss turned on her lightsaber, basking in the orange glow of her blade, the one she’d spent sixteen years opposing the Empire with. That was better.

Collapsed next to her, half-submerged in water, Ahsoka was alive, clad in the armor they'd unearthed together. Unconscious, weak, and cold, but alive.

Barriss used her saber as a light source, carefully setting it down on a stone next to her as she slung Ahsoka over her shoulders, more for the sake of keeping to a smaller space while navigating the dilapidated Sith Temple than for support, then taking the saber and heading out. After getting back up to the command level, Barriss wasn’t even lifting Ahsoka anymore, relying on the Force to support close to a hundred kilos of armor and Togrutan muscle hovering just above her shoulders.

The stairs seemed to stretch on forever, the strain wearing on Barriss. She could rely on the Force to carry Ahsoka, but moving herself up so many steps was something she could only do on her own.

Climbing back up the staircase, Barriss headed towards the dim light that shined down on the Sith Temple, then turned off her saber and rummaged around in her coat pockets for her communicator as she came close enough to the surface to reliably transmit a signal.

“This is Barriss. I’ve found her. Repeat, I’ve found her. Return to the ship and prepare to leave.”

The droidekas did not obey that order, instead they converged and swarmed around Barriss and Ahsoka, blasters unfolded, scanning the environment and ready to annihilate whatever enemy had done this. This valiant escort continued until they were all back aboard the ship.

Within the _Eclipse_ , a gurney had been readied in case Ahsoka needed rest when found, and once she was lying down and secured Barriss departed for the cockpit and took them away from this husk of a world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, spoilers for both my previous work and the last episode of TCW, but I have a track record of predicting things in Star Wars, and I need to point out the ends of TCW and TEotS both end with Darth Vader coming into possession of Ahsoka’s lightsaber, igniting it in a field of snow in front of a crashed warship. I published that weeks before the episode dropped, and I had the scene planned out for like two years. This is amazing.


	2. What is Thy Bidding?

Mara was alone. Exactly what she was always meant to be.

Staring out the office window, overlooking the capital city of Aceris from the highest level of its palace, Mara considered how the events of the next few minutes would affect the populace below, as she often wondered of the worlds she visited. It didn’t worry her much, as she had faith the galaxy would remain a just place.

Shifting her attention to her reflection in the glass, she brushed her braided red hair over one shoulder, considering whether she should dye or cut it. After all the missions she’d been on, it was prudent not to keep such a distinctive appearance. No one had spotted her yet, but if anyone did, that information would creep its way to potential enemies.

Turning away from the window and taking a seat in the chair of Governor Prodric, an appointee of the Emperor, Mara passed the time looking through his computer. Nothing in here she didn’t already know about. Nothing she hadn’t already downloaded as evidence to be analyzed later well before she’d even planned to come here tonight.

So much money that could’ve been used for so many better purposes, stolen by this corrupt official. This kind of work was necessary and mundane. At least it would soon be over.

Finding nothing new on the computer, Mara turned the ostentatious chair around again, viewing the city from the governor’s preferred perspective, the river bisecting the city reflecting the light of two silvery moons.

The automated metal doors of the office slid open, and warm yellow lighting filled the room as Mara listened to the heavy footsteps approaching.

“Hello, Governor Prodric,” Mara said as she turned the chair around, her target already halfway through the office, a middle-aged man with the uniform and rank bars of an imperial governor.

“Who are you?” the governor asked, indignant at being interrupted during what Mara presumed was an intent to send some encrypted message to his allies. “What are you doing here?”

“Someone working to make the galaxy a better place,” she replied, watching as the governor glared disbelieving at her before heading to his left, reaching behind a painting on his wall.

“You’re not the first assassin to show up in my office, though you’re certainly the most arrogant one, not even trying to attack me straight away,” Prodric said, looking worried when he didn’t find what he was looking for.

“Looking for this?” Mara said, her gloved hand holding up the blaster she’d removed from that hidden alcove during the process of sweeping the room for any and all tricks the governor had prepared.

“Very cute. If you don’t get out of here, my security forces will kill you even if I can't,” Prodric said, pressing a button on his wrist link, and even more surprised when nothing happened, pressing the button again a few times.

“Good, good,” Mara calmly said with a nod. “I’m glad you understand the situation.”

The security controls were all in front of her, a consequence of centralizing power around someone who lacked the intellect to maintain and secure it.

“You’ve stolen a considerable sum of credits, governor,” Mara said, igniting her magenta lightsaber. “It needs to be made clear that there are consequences for such crimes, even at such a high level of society.”

“Who are you?!” the governor asked, backing away to the sealed door.

“My name is Mara Jade,” she said, getting up out of the chair with her lightsaber raised, ready to dispense justice. The mark of this weapon would send the right message to the right people. “I’m here to kill you.”

* * *

Climbing up through the shafts of the Star Destroyer’s control tower, Galen checked his chrono. Based on his observations of the crew’s patterns over the past several days of hiding in the ship’s maintenance shafts, Admiral Parme had retired to his quarters for the night.

Continuing the ascent up through the tower, passing wires, power cords, air ducts and support beams, Galen kept track of his position by counting the metal panels he passed, something made difficult by the limited lighting and the helmet he was wearing in addition to the light armored black vac-suit.

Once at the appropriate level, his senses encouraging him to proceed, he ignited his lightsaber, sliced through the metal wall in four quick swings to make a rough square, and burst into the quarters to find a bewildered admiral, who immediately reached for his comm to call for help. He didn’t get far, stopping mid-motion and grasping at his throat as he was choked to death. Fast, effective, undetected.

All too easy.

Setting the body back down into the bed, Galen retreated back through the entry hole he made, descending down the shaft towards the garbage storage bays at the base of the Star Destroyer’s tower. He’d waded through trash to get in here, he had no qualms getting out the same way, and used the Force to pry open one of the door panels.

Cloaked from imperial sensors, the _Rogue Shadow_ appeared to recover its owner, hovering behind the control tower and opening the airlock at the rear of the ship.

With the job done, Galen checked that his suit and helmet had a secure seal, and leapt out from the Star Destroyer’s trash storage and into space, hurtling through microgravity into his ship.

Once he was aboard, the flat, asymmetric imperial transport jumped to hyperspace.

The airlock repressurized in seconds, allowing Galen to open the secondary door to the interior. He didn’t step through, though, not right away, looking at the entryways to training room and medical station, searching for reflections in the metal walls. Then he spotted it, the brown robes of a Jedi waiting to strike at him from around the corner of his quarters.

Galen pretended to walk forward to the cockpit as usual, lightsaber held inactive with a reverse grip, until the hall was illuminated by a blue lightsaber and the attacker left his hiding spot. A brief duel, only three strikes, ended with his saber slicing upwards through the bearded assailant’s torso.

The holographic image of the enemy duelist vanished, revealing Proxy, a lanky training droid equipped with holoprojectors and countless combat modules meant to constantly test Galen's survival and dueling skills.

“Oh, master, I have failed to kill you yet again,” Proxy said dourly, circular yellow photoreceptors staring at the floor, the violet glow of the holoprojectors at his joints dimming as they shut down. “I am sorry for being unable to complete my mission.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m sure you’ll get me next time,” Galen reassured his best friend, as he had countless time before over the years, helping the droid to his feet before the two headed on towards the cockpit.

“I take it your latest mission was a success, master?”

“It was. Admiral Parme won’t be an obstacle any longer,” Galen replied, taking the pilot’s seat and relaxing in the brief moment before he noticed Proxy wasn’t following behind him anymore.

Proxy abruptly paused in a manner Galen recognized. In addition to a useful training aid, Proxy acted as a communications medium, able to appear as holographic projections to Galen, and he was presently receiving a transmission.

* * *

The Z-95 Headhunter dropped out of hyperspace at the system's edge, homing in on the TZ-91 bulk freighter Mara used as a base of operations. The headhunter's speed and ubiquity making it useful for avoiding attention during short trips, and drew less attention than a bulk freighter which never contained any cargo save for several other single-person craft Mara employed depending on the nature of the mission. Whether she needed to fight, escape, or blend in.

Back in her ship, her home among the starlanes, out of any danger and with her mission completed, Mara allowed a smile to herself with immense pride in the wake of another job well done.

The smile vanished quickly, leaving eagerness and anticipation. Through the Force, she could feel that her presence was required. Perfectly timed as ever, and she had good news. Letting out a slow breath, Mara was eager to report her most recent success.

Ascending up the metal stairs and out of the cargo hold-turned-improvised hangar and towards the comm station at the front of the ship, Mara keyed in the codes to access the secure transmission from the Core.

Mara turned on the holoprojector, and bowed before the image of her Emperor.

“What is thy bidding...”

* * *

“...my master?” Galen said, getting the obligatory greeting out of the way. The transmission of Darth Vader loomed over Galen, who was kneeling down, trying to get his heart rate and breathing under control after being contacted unexpectedly after being in the vacuum of space a minute ago. Galen dared to raise his head and look at his master. The mask... it looked new. Rounder, the lenses were less distinctly red, it must have been replaced recently. “Admiral Parme has been dealt with, as you commanded.”

Rather than respond to the outcome of the mission, Vader didn’t even acknowledge the success or ask for any details, apparently treating the death of an imperial admiral as irrelevant, which was somewhat disappointing. Galen had worked hard on this.

“I have a task for you,” Darth Vader began. “There is a Jedi working for the Rebellion, currently marooned on Malachor. She must be dealt with.”

“A Jedi Knight?” Galen asked, incredulous that there were any left.

“Not a Knight. She failed to complete her apprenticeship,” Vader replied coldly. His arms were crossed over his chest, and Galen noticed one hand’s grip tightening. “The Emperor has called me to Coruscant, so I must rely on you to capture her.”

“You want her to be taken alive?” Galen asked.

“Was that _unclear_ to you?” Vader asked sharply, his patience even shorter than usual.

“No, master, not at all,” Galen said, bowing back down again. “You’ve simply never ordered me to capture anyone before.”

“I expect you to be capable of such adaptation,” Vader said.

“Of course. Where can I find her?” asked Galen. A planet was a large area to cover, even one as barren as Malachor.

“Trapped within a Sith Temple, buried beneath the surface. You will receive the coordinates with the other files prepared for you. If you succeed, you will have completed this stage of your training,” Vader said, taking a moment for a handful of slow, mechanical breaths. For a long moment, Vader didn't say anything, leaving Galen wondering what to do before the dark lord gave a simple, direct instruction as the transmission ended. “ _Bring her back to me_.”

* * *

“My Emperor, I have uncovered evidence of Governor Prodric siphoning funds intended for security of Aceris’s shipyards, and subsequently eliminated him as a traitor to your Empire,” she recited. As had become normal, she’d killed her target with her lightsaber. Anyone who learned details of his death would be left wondering if a surviving Jedi had done it. Uncertainty and distrust would spread among the Emperor’s enemies, and even officers loyal to their Emperor would fear the Jedi more. The cleverer ones who suspected her targets were traitors would similarly fear the wrath of the Emperor. “I’ve discovered more than the governor’s thefts. He wasn’t simply embezzling for his own profit, he was funneling credits to the Rebellion, at the direction of the agent known as Fulcrum.”

“You have done well, child,” the Emperor said with a smile. “I am fortunate to have you acting as my Hand.”

Of course her mission was well done. The Emperor’s Hand did not fail.

"I will summarize and transmit my findings immediately, including pertinent files from the governor's computer. The latest reports I've taken from the ISB indicated Fulcrum was overseeing Rebel activity in the Lothal Sector," said Mara. “Do you intend to dispatch Vader?”

“Not in this case," the Emperor replied after a moment, dismissing the idea. "I require my apprentice's skills elsewhere, and have taken him away from his work on Lothal.”

The mention of Vader's preferred role chafed at Mara for a brief moment. The boundless respect she had for the Emperor occasionally clashed with his choice of subordinates, especially that blundering monstrosity he used to terrify his enemies. Mara supposed Vader was effective in the role of enforcer, if little else.

“As you wish,” said Mara. “How may I serve you next?”

“Rather than assign you a new task, I would like you to pursue this rebel agent, this Fulcrum,” the Emperor said thoughtfully. “Your skills are growing, young Mara, and I believe you are capable.”

“As you wish,” Mara repeated with a bow, surprised and encouraged by the amount of confidence she was being shown. "I will continue my investigation, master."

The Emperor watched her carefully for a moment, concluding her report with another intrigued smile. “I will be very interested to learn how your investigation progresses.”

* * *

This was so exciting. After dealing with rival imperials and the occasional inquisitor who’d disappointed his master, this was finally a real test. Of the missions he’d received, Galen had never had the opportunity to fight a Jedi. His master always preferred to take care of them himself.

“I have the files Lord Vader transmitted, Master. Ahsoka Tano, apprentice of General Anakin Skywalker,” Proxy said, spindly metal limbs adjusting to the appropriate proportions as he generated a hologram of the young Jedi, taken from the most recent sighting of her when fleeing the Empire years earlier. Speaking with Ahsoka’s voice, Proxy continued, “Present at several battles of the Clone Wars, Tano eventually abandoned her master and her role as a Jedi after being framed for a seditious bombing committed by another Jedi, Barriss Offee, causing her to leave the order. Following the conclusion of the war, scattered incidents of her attacking imperial installations occurred, as well as multiple reports of her termination. She has been presumed dead for years.”

Judging by Vader’s recent encounter, the sightings didn’t indicate Ahsoka had been fighting the Empire with less frequency, only that she’d become better at covering her tracks until running into the master.

“Despite her desertion, she was quite an accomplished soldier. It will be quite an accomplishment when you kill her,” Proxy-Ahsoka said cheerfully.

“I’m not killing her. Lord Vader wants her alive. Now, tell me about her fighting style,” Galen said, leading a somewhat dejected Proxy into the training room. “Your profile on her is going to be outdated. Increase your size, strength, and reflexes to match those of a trained adult Togruta, then increase power to your repulsors and tractor beam projectors to levels of a Jedi Master, not a Knight. We’ll work from there.”

* * *

Every report on the activities of the rebel agent or agents known as Fulcrum had been transmitted to Mara’s ship, the air around her filled with holographic reports as she sat in the pilot's seat, piecing together where she should travel next.

There were intercepted transmissions, images of that bent-line-and-diamond symbol found on deserted crates, known associates in rebel cells across the galaxy. Sightings of their symbol had been reported scattered throughout the Empire, with no evident pattern to the movements.

Fulcrum was remarkably elusive, and imperial intelligence had been unable to establish their identity, the most likely explanation being that it was an entire network of rebels acting under a singular identity as misinformation.

A more critical piece of the puzzle, the one which would give her the edge and lead her to success where lesser agents failed, was the documents stolen from the governor’s personal computer. The man had been unwisely lax in securing his data, and while there was no explicit mention of Fulcrum, Mara was looking forward to following the trail the rebels had so helpfully left for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, let's talk about these two awful trash piles whom I love. I know plenty of you are primarily Clone Wars fans and aren’t familiar with the old EU, and I’m really interested in your first impressions. Here’s some background on these two, just in case this chapter wasn’t enough:
> 
> Mara Jade (I based her appearance on her picture in [The Last Command Sourcebook](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Mara_Jade_Skywalker?file=Mara_TLCSB.jpg), most other official art of her is atrocious) is easily the most popular character native to the Legends continuity, even beating out Thrawn and the cast of KotOR. She dates back to the early 90s, before there was any clear definition of the Sith or the Rule of Two, making her place in the universe a bit unusual. She was the “Emperor’s Hand”, basically a Force-using agent who’d take care of things more quietly than someone like Vader was capable, and reported directly to Palpatine. As for how the idea of the Emperor’s Hand fits with the Rule of Two in this story, that’ll be answered eventually. Being introduced to the franchise before the Jedi-Sith conflict was explored served her character quite well, making her more Force-neutral and unique than Star Wars usually permits, consistently demonstrating sympathy and loyalty to people she thought deserved it despite her intense devotion to Palpatine. Having been raised to serve Palpatine from an early age, this girl’s drunk a whole lot of imperial kool-aid. Most high-ranking imperials are aware to some degree they’re serving an evil goblin, but Mara doesn’t seem the least bit bothered by Palpy’s horrible, melted-wax face. Being the direct subordinate of the most powerful person in the entire galaxy, Mara Jade views that as reason to believe she's superior to everyone. She is an arrogant little shit. Just an awful human dumpster fire. I love her.
> 
> Galen Marek was the protagonist of The Force Unleashed games, and had a much more mixed reception than Mara. Because he’s pretty ridiculous. He was originally referred to by the call sign “Starkiller”, but I’m not bothering with it because there’s no one with reason to call him that in this story, mainly with Proxy calling him “master”. Most fans now call him Galen anyway to avoid confusion with the First Order superweapon. He was Darth Vader’s Sith apprentice, not an inquisitor, not some fallen Jedi, a bona fide together-we-will-rule-the-galaxy Sith apprentice. Vader had like five of those in Legends. I have a soft spot for The Force Unleashed because while there are serious flaws in its writing and it doesn’t fit with the timeline at all, it so obviously loves Star Wars, understands the universe it’s in better than people give it credit for, and gets so over-the-top it manages to loop back around and become awesome. It was also, y’know, fun to play, and I could’ve solved the biggest writing problems with a couple dialogue changes, it just needed some workshopping. Galen is stupidly overpowered, achieving such feats as pulling a Star Destroyer out of the sky (ironically this was by far the worst part of the game) and, even more implausibly, being the one to finally kill Shaak Ti once and for all. If any of you are irritated by that stuff, don’t worry, I’m dialing back his power level to something more reasonable, and have additional explanations for what makes him as tough as he is. Even if you still hate this character, good news, you get to enjoy watching him get beaten up a few times. I’ve got something for everyone! Also, Galen was the first Star Wars role of Sam Witwer, voice actor for Maul, the Son, and sometimes Palpatine, and his performance brought a lot of life to the character.
> 
> Both characters were designed as foils for Luke, being raised from childhood to serve dark masters, and being extremely aggressive Force-users in contrast to our favorite blonde cinnamon roll. Galen also wields his saber in a reverse grip like Ahsoka does, and noticing that detail and considering its implications partly spurred the development of this whole story.


	3. Welcome Home

Ahsoka lay on a gurney in the cargo hold of the _Eclipse_ , her armor removed, her body pushed to its limit. There were incomplete fractures and serious bruises from what seemed to be a fall of a few stories, on top of the early stages of hypothermia, malnourishment, and dehydration. It was amazing she’d been able to move around. After days on Malachor drinking any water she could find, and being constrained by the nexus of that temple, she was weak.

Between Barriss’s healing abilities and Ahsoka’s grit, she’d pull through. Checking the medical station Barriss set up as Ahsoka lay in the gurney, the latter’s heartbeat and breathing were normal. The intravenous fluid Barriss had applied was helping Ahsoka recover from dehydration, which wasn’t as bad as feared after a week alone. It contained diluted bacta, which was working its usual medical marvels.

Unfortunately, whatever Ahsoka had been drinking had caused additional problems. A strong connection to the Force and impressive muscles didn’t offer much protection from ingesting whatever runoff came from a Sith Temple. There was also some food in her stomach, probably some of the vermin Ahsoka resorted to eating to keep her strength up. Time to bring out the gastric lavage and extract everything she’d ingested from Malachor. Judging from the contents of her stomach, Ahsoka at least discovered some means of cooking whatever it was she’d caught.

As Ahsoka recovered, Barriss took a detour along their route and dropped the _Eclipse_ out of hyperspace in the middle of the interstellar void, thinking on how to proceed.

This was something Barriss had been dreading. The tipping point. Ever since Ahsoka told her what she suspected had become of Skywalker after his fighter battle Phoenix Squadron, this was the moment she had been dreading. Confirmation.

The man Ahsoka considered a friend, mentor, and brother had attempted to murder her. There was nothing Barriss could do about it. Nothing she could do to help. Barriss didn’t begrudge Ahsoka for running off without her, though naturally she wished she hadn't.

Many years ago, the two of them had discovered information supposedly confirming Anakin Skywalker had been killed, and that knowledge wounded Ahsoka. No going into hiding or evading the Empire for her master. As far as she’d known, he was dead with the rest of the Jedi. In retrospect, the fate of Anakin Skywalker didn’t surprise Barriss in the slightest. There was no way Barriss would address him as Vader. No matter how he covered his face, he remained Anakin Skywalker.

This was so much worse than she'd expected. Not only was Ahsoka going through that same loss, again, it was coupled with revelations about who Skywalker was and what he was willing to do. Skywalker wasn’t a victim of the Jedi Purge, he was its executor.

Sighing to herself, Barriss checked her chrono. There would be time to contemplate this further when Ahsoka awoke, right now, she had a report to hear. Starting up the private comm system, one separate from the one built into the ship and with interchangeable ID codes for quick removal and destruction if needed, Barriss glanced at the tattoos on the back of her hand. The Empire did not have strengths. Only weaknesses Barriss had yet to exploit.

After a moment of waiting, a rotating white hologram of the markings on Ahsoka’s forehead appeared in front of her, with an identical hologram being projected on the other end of the transmission.

“Against the starless sky,” began Barriss.

“Black wings carry an unseen bird,” the rebel agent’s distorted voice responded, completing the code phrase. Code phrases were standard amongst the Fulcrum network. Too complex to guess, meaningful and memorable to the speaker, and each operative also possessed warning phrases they were to give to captors or when operating under duress. In Barriss’s case, they were an added precaution rather than a crucial security measure.

Through the Force, Barriss knew well that her agent on the other end of this transmission was indeed Fulcrum Three, and currently in no danger. Not everyone always was, something no one except for her and Ahsoka would be able to determine. The advantage the Force offered Barriss was one reason among several she’d served the Rebel Alliance better as an intelligence coordinator rather than a frontline commander.

“Please, begin your report,” Barriss began, and the conversation proceeded with her top agent listing off the most recent efforts of affiliated rebel cells, Barriss taking notes to aid in the coordination and planning of future operations.

“Sabotage of small arms production continues, with operatives in all priority factories damaging precision of all common imperial blasters,” said F3. This was one of Barriss’s preferred methods of weakening the Empire. Focusing on inhibiting military production didn’t result in anyone’s deaths, save for cases with especially harsh overseers dissatisfied with the results. Such events were not unheard of, but the industrial sabotage secured more victories for the Rebellion overall not only with the poor equipment, but by the repair and replacement costs. At the best of time, it could take a hundred soldiers to destroy an AT-AT. A technician on the factory floor spraying corrosives into the walker’s hydraulic fluid could do it single-handedly.

Barriss’s fist clenched as she thought about the workers the Empire used to make their weapons. The people who put themselves in danger to help her defeat the Empire, while it was her responsibility to reduce the risk and maximize their effectiveness. That was easy for her to think as she sat in her ship, out of danger. If she worked with them directly, and the Empire discovered her involvement, they’d be put through infinitely more torment than if she’d stayed away. That was a deliberate strategy, a trap meant to exploit her sense of morality which she would not allow to ensnare her again.

“Imperial advisor Remalius Mox was successfully captured in transit between Coruscant and Vardos,” F3 continued after finishing a discussion of the minutia.

That one had been F3’s own idea. Kidnapping imperial advisors, doing so while leaving evidence implicating multiple rivals with varying levels of obviousness so any investigation wouldn’t be able to determine who was actually responsible, and who was being framed for it. Spread paranoia among other such high-level officials, motivating them to commit more resources to excessive personal security measures and damage cooperation between genuinely loyal servants of the Emperor. As supplying imperial secrets raised the possibility of being charged with treason and being executed, the advisors they’d captured suddenly became perfectly willing to actually divulge such secrets in exchange for safety, in addition to handing over the contents of their secret bank accounts. All of this suited Barriss’s goals perfectly compared with straightforward assassination. The result was still a vacancy in the imperial hierarchy, and the Rebellion got credits and information out of the process.

This unwillingness to take lives worked well for Barriss when directing the Rebellion’s counterintelligence operations, as such work benefited from not killing imperials, keeping them alive to be manipulated, pitted against each other, captured, interrogated, or in the best of cases, recruited. Using the knowledge she gathered to save the lives of rebels, and making plans to defeat the Empire with minimal loss of life.

Every day, she knew, people on both sides of the conflict killed each other despite her efforts in confrontations she played a role in orchestrating. What allowed her to endure was the knowledge of her increasing efficacy in reducing losses, and that unlike in the Clone Wars, she wasn’t being made to follow orders she did not agree with, and her position provided the perspective to know whether or not there really were better choices.

It wasn’t ideal. In an ideal galaxy, the Empire wouldn’t exist. Every day, Barriss brought the galaxy a bit closer towards that ideal. With Ahsoka, she could endure. They would both endure.

There was another reason Barriss felt motivation to keep fighting despite the odds. Palpatine craved control over everything. Even if only one world, one life, out of all the galaxy was denied him, it would sting exactly as much as though he’d lost everything. Someone like him would never be satisfied, and he could never realize that. It made her feel better to know neither of them was really having a good time.

“Has there been any progress in disrupting the Outer Rim slave trade?” asked Barriss.

“The nearest resistance cell succeeded in hijacking five transports,” F3 replied, much to Barriss’s relief. “They’re still in the process of sorting through who’s willing to join the Rebellion, and which safe worlds to deliver the rest. We’re also sorting through reports from the former slaves of where they were being taken.”

First and foremost, as Barriss frequently reminded herself, liberating sapient beings from painful lives of hazardous service to the Empire was the right thing to do.

Strategically, former slave labor freed from the Empire was a common source of new recruits for the Rebel Alliance. The treatment the slaves were subjected to gave them reason to hate the Empire, with nothing left to lose, and deprived the Empire of an expendable labor force further weakened the industrial capacity of the enemy.

Pessimism said that the Empire would simply find new slaves, exploit another population, that it didn’t matter. It wasn’t true, something else Barriss needed to remind herself. The Empire was forced to expend resources and credits to find replacements, increased resentment towards them on more worlds, and unwittingly maintained a supply of new rebel recruits in the process. Barriss only needed to be sure the ships, weapons, and supplies were available to provide others the means to fight back.

“What of the shipyard project?” asked Barriss, referring to a planned attack on Sluis Van. Standard procedure for the Rebellion was usually to wait until imperial construction efforts were nearly complete, consuming time and personnel, and then destroying them to cost the Empire the most resources without letting them achieve anything.

“We have gathered enough proton warheads to attack the under-construction ships prior to their completion. I’ve organized the timing of the strike,” said F3. That would delay construction at one shipyard out of thousands. Normally, stealing enemy warships was preferable to damaging them, but in the case of the Star Destroyers being constructed they simply didn’t have the people to crew them.

“And what of your assigned charge?” Barriss said, seeking to bring the update to a close.

“No significant changes. Her friendship with Targeter has brought her closer to rebel activities than her guardians would prefer,” the rebel agent explained, choosing words carefully. Even with their security measures, on this subject vagueness was always used.

“I’ve also been developing an initiative into disabling Star Destroyers,” said F3, unexpectedly prolonging the report.

“Please, elaborate,” Barriss said, perking up. The Fulcrum network’s third-in-command was increasingly stepping up, a welcome development with Ahsoka’s recent absences.

“I believe I have a means of disabling a Star Destroyer,” said F3. “Mouse droids are viewed as beneath suspicion, though they’re still regularly subject to security checks which can detect all conventional explosive and blaster weapons. I’ve been developing a form of sonic emitter weapon with components making it externally indistinguishable from their speaker system, and wouldn't be flagged by sensors.”

“Continue,” Barriss said with a nod. Normal explosive weapons such as thermal detonators couldn’t be readily slipped aboard a Star Destroyer, but mouse droids had previously been useful for a variety of spying missions until the Empire finally caught on and instituted more thorough security scans.

“Such droids are normally checked for any tampering, but this method won’t involve any obvious explosives. Such an attack could be used to kill its bridge officers.”

This made Barriss pause. The proposed idea was to use an innocuous infiltrator to target and kill a large number of people. She was quiet for a few seconds, thinking about whether her personal irritation was worth more than the strategic advantages. Today was unexpectedly getting worse than it already had been, and Barriss was impressed at how skillfully the universe was getting on her nerves.

“Even bridge crews are expendable to the Empire,” Barriss said, challenging the idea. “Unless you have the opportunity to strike at a grand admiral, it won’t accomplish anything, the other officers will be replaced within days.”

“In the middle of a battle, they can’t be,” the agent objected, and it was a good point, requiring Barriss take another moment to think.

“We can do better. Using sonic weapons hidden in mouse droids is an excellent idea, and it would be more effectively applied targeting the Star Destroyer itself,” said Barriss. “Consider ways your technique could be used to disable systems such as the engines. If the ship cannot pursue or maneuver, it would be similarly useless in battle. It would also be a challenge for the Empire to repair, with the entire warship and its personnel furloughed. Time spent identifying the cause of the damage. Cost of replacement parts. Time needed to deliver them. Remember, overcoming the Empire won’t be accomplished through pure military power. Consider possibilities to damage them from standpoints of logistics, economics, and hierarchy. A Star Destroyer’s hyperdrive is a more valuable target than any captain, and if a fleet jumps into a battle without their command ship, the same effect will be achieved as attacking the bridge, and then some.”

“Yes... yes, I understand,” F3 said, and Barriss took heart when she heard not only comprehension, but optimism in her subordinate’s electronically filtered voice. This one had a great deal of creativity which Barriss sought to continue encouraging.

“Very good. That’s all for now,” Barriss said, adding “Be safe,” as F3 signed off, and she deactivated the transmitter, relieved that the conversation had gone so well. Finding less destructive alternative tactics wasn’t always so easy.

With the current check-in and review of reports from her other agents dealt with, there was one question she needed to answer.

_Should I contact Phoenix Squadron?_

Her first impulse was to send a missive informing them of Ahsoka’s survival since she’d received their report of what transpired, but Barriss held off, wanting to hear what happened directly from Ahsoka before taking action.

Now, she regretted not meeting them personally sooner. To her, it had seemed prudent to avoid revealing herself and maintain anonymity, so if Ahsoka was identified by the Empire and became a priority target, which was exactly what happened, one of the Fulcrum network’s creators and leaders would remain unknown to them. Assuming they’d even be aware that another Fulcrum leader existed.

Whether to accompany Ahsoka had been an issue Barriss avoided, especially after advising Captain Hera Syndulla to leave Kanan Jarrus to die on Mustafar. To leave Caleb Dume. From a practical perspective of maintaining their forces, she and Ahsoka stood by her choice not to risk the entire cell to save one man, Jedi or not. Personally, it was another sacrifice to weigh on her conscience.

Or it would’ve been, had it not been for the actions of Ezra Bridger, who’d managed to save his master despite the odds through determination and guile. Barriss respected that ethos.

Not only that, Phoenix Squadron had previously revealed to the Fulcrum network that the Imperial Inquisition had been holding the remains of Barriss’s former master, Luminara Unduli, on Stygeon Prime. Before her deceased master’s remains could be relocated as had been done previously to draw in Jedi from nearby sectors with rumors of her survival, Barriss had attacked the facility, seized Luminara’s remains, and laid her to rest on Mirial.

As Luminara was now at peace, her ashes spread across the cold desert, Barriss felt indebted to the Spectres for that, whether they knew what they’d done for her or not. Months later, she’d recommended they leave their close friend to be tortured to death at the tender mercies of Grand Moff Tarkin. She felt rather indebted to them for that as well.

As the _Eclipse_ drifted through the interstellar void, Barriss began laying out new plans for destabilizing the Empire’s military-industrial complex, obsessively checking through the reliability of reports, coming up with contingencies, editing instructions and recommendations to be sent out to various cells. Barriss deleted and rewrote sections of one file reporting imperial cargo shipments throughout the Inner Rim, making it sound less distinctly like her cadence as she’d frequently reminded herself to use more generic phrasing.

The immediate target the _Eclipse_ was traveling towards target was Senator Drescran of Moseprous. This man was important for his work developing the Empire's military budget and was a prominent supporter of Palpatine, now returning to his homeworld full of new ideas and under the protection of two imperial senate guards. The senate guards were selected from the Emperor's own royal guards, intended to act as protection to senators deemed important by Palpatine, presented as a reward. As often as not, the blue-armored soldiers were placed more to observe the senators and ensure loyalty from those political allies. They weren’t often used on known dissident senators, as such obvious surveillance would be counterproductive when they could be spied upon more discretely and lead the Empire to other rebels. Drescran was known to have attained his position through various ‘accidents’ befalling his predecessors. If a similar ‘accident’ came close to befalling the senate guards, they would no doubt suspect foul play on the part of the man they were meant to be protecting. A loyal political ally would be turned against Palpatine, either out of his own paranoia or the Emperor’s, and one more cog in the political machinery of the Empire would snap.

Also, she was going to slice into his computer to transfer credits from his own accounts into those held by the Rebellion. It wasn’t entirely clear to her whether so much money had been acquired legally, not that it mattered either by the standards of the Empire’s laws surrounding the overlap of political influence and business or by how the transfer would be perceived. There was no way to spin that positively. Barriss would prefer the transfer not be traced, though she had contingencies both for holding onto the funds and ensuring details of those accounts would incriminate the senator further.

A badly encrypted, easily traced message containing false information was sent out right before the _Eclipse_ jumped into hyperspace. If it wasn’t noticed by a listening post, nothing was lost. If it was, perhaps she’d drawn an imperial patrol away from something more important. Every small action brought the Empire closer to collapse.

Now came time to indulge a personal project. With a lull in the work, Barriss pulled up texts documenting methods for constructing holocrons, and a journal with a few designs of her own. No matter how long the fight against the Empire took, she would not give up, she promised such. Even if it took more time than her lifespan allowed.

An hour later, Barriss stopped sketching as a surge of awareness hit her, activity in the Force.

Ahsoka was awake.

* * *

Crackling violet lightning poured from the peak of the Malachor Temple, its superweapon readying itself to fire a petrifying wave as Ahsoka faced her former master, his black cape billowing in the air currents.

“I won’t leave you!” Ahsoka called out to her old friend. “Not this time.”

“Then you will die,” Vader said with Anakin’s voice, igniting his saber and resuming his approach. As he grew closer, Ahsoka could more clearly see the scarred face of her master through the break in his mask, the Sith's gold iris illuminated by the red light of his saber.

Locking blades once again, Ahsoka continued to be pushed back with each of Vader’s strikes, feeling the fatigue from the prolonged fight. Dodging swings until she was backed towards in the center of the temple summit, nowhere else to go as the walls sealed around her, the superweapon fired as Ahsoka pushed Vader back one last time and stabbed her lightsabers into the floor.

The ground fractured apart as Vader continued to approach, energy coursing from her blades as the floor began to come apart beneath her and Vader. Too slowly to make a difference.

As no one was left to save her, the red lightsaber swung, then burned through her right arm, through her torso, then the arc of the swing exited her body for an instant before cutting through her left hand. The Jedi armor she wore was useless against it. Ahsoka fell down through the floor, staring up as Vader stepped back in time to avoid the collapse, knowing he’d made good on his final words to his padawan.

* * *

Ahsoka gasped and shuddered as she woke up, cringing at the revolting taste in her mouth and trying to figure out where she was, whether she was hurt, and where her weapons were. Both of her lightsabers shot into her hands from the table next to her in time for her to bolt upright and study her surroundings, quickly coming to stand on the gurney she’d been laying on, ready to fight.

Lightsabers active, Ahsoka panted as she expected danger. With her eyes still adjusting to the light, the brightest she’d experienced in over a week, the first thing she noticed was sounds, particularly the clanking footsteps, unfolding blasters, and active energy shields of droidekas. Several of them, upon noticing their leader preparing to defend herself, had arranged themselves in a protective circle around her, ready and waiting to fight whatever she was reacting to.

The _Eclipse_. She was in her ship. _Their_ ship, her and Barriss. Ahsoka couldn’t recall coming aboard, or how.

The increasingly fast and loud patter of feet coming nearer ended when Barriss rushed into the cargo hold, and Ahsoka turned off her sabers, setting them aside as she sat back down onto the gurney's edge.

Coming to her bedside, Barriss looked downright heavenly in the lighting.

“Welcome home.”

When Barriss tenderly took Ahsoka’s hand, the latter leaned forward to kiss her, still trying to get a hold on what had happened, hoping Malachor was all some terrible dream and nothing more.

* * *

The _Rogue Shadow_ descended down through the enormous, jagged hole fragmenting Malachor’s surface, down into a buried ruin. Galen recognized the architecture of the Sith structure sitting at the center of the hemispherical cavern. Pyramidal shape, combining stone and metal, probably Old Sith era, perhaps shortly post-Mandalorian Wars. Beautifully designed, it elegantly transitioned into the smaller structures surrounding the base. It was also an unfortunate obstacle, because the heat and intense EM fields it was giving off made it difficult to scan for life signs.

Landing gear unfolded from the bottom of the ship, and the modified transport settled into the ash amongst the petrified remains of attackers and defenders. Emerging from the top hatch, Galen stood on his ship, lightsaber in hand, and waited. Ahsoka Tano had been here for several days, alone on a dead world. The _Shadow_ was the only way off, and she was going to have to get through him. Between the sound of the engines and the front lights shining into the darkness, she undoubtedly knew he was here. All he needed to do now was wait.

That assumption was called into serious question after an hour of standing around. The _Shadow’s_ security system had been configured not to permit anyone but Galen to take off, and to require live biometrics from him. There was no way that if Galen left the ship alone, Ahsoka could steal it, but if she was expecting him to get bored and wander off, he didn’t want to begin a battle by following the enemy’s expectations. Instead he sat down on the top hull and began mediating, feeling the flow of the dark energies of the temple, the lingering power of the battle that had been fought here, anticipating the one that would take place today. He also searched for his target, trying to sense where she was. Being trained as a Jedi, even if she’d left the order, a calm mind amidst the devastation and pain this place held would stand out quickly.

Another hour later, he’d discovered nothing.

Double-checking sensors to see if they could pick up life signs, and again make sure security arrangements were in place, _and_ removing an ignition coil from the main engine just to be safe, he reluctantly set out to find Ahsoka. She won this round.

Light from two moons shined down through the crack above, lighting the way forward. With the underground settlement exposed to the air above, winds across Malachor’s surface created a circulating current in this pocket, dust slowly floating over the temple. Feet kicking up more dust as he walked past petrified warriors, Galen decided the first thing he’d do was get to the top of the pyramid, see what Ahsoka had originally come here for. It must have been there, it was the only point of interest.

Maybe it would give a clue as to where she had gone to.

Maybe she was at the top of the pyramid already.

Galen picked up the pace, with a tighter grip on his saber, until he came across his first corpse at the base of the pyramid. One made of flesh, not stone like all the other ones. An inquisitor, judging by the outfit and the broken remains of their standard lightsaber design leading behind him towards the pyramid. Body was dried out, but with the distinctive feet, he was a Terrelian Jango Jumper.

 _Did he fall?_ Galen wondered as he followed the trail of metal from his broken lightsaber and looked upwards at the pyramid.

_Did Ahsoka kill him?_

The side of the pyramid had what looked like an elevator, but it didn’t activate when he stood on it. It wasn’t broken down, though, there was a visible lack of dust on the path it was supposed to follow up the side of the pyramid. It had been used recently. Taking a long walk around the pyramid, Galen found another elevator, this time he spotted the activation switch on the side, and began the ascent.

Anyone who’d used the elevator would know what it sounded like, and expect an enemy to use it, making a focused counterattack likely. Nothing seemed to come, though Galen did get a surprise when he reached the lower terrace and found another dead inquisitor. Female Mirialan, from what he could tell. With a huge gash in her torso, face frozen in fear and agony.

That seemed unnecessarily brutal, especially for a Jedi. Or an ex-Jedi. Maybe this was a later development in Ahsoka’s methods he hadn’t anticipated. Galen couldn't deny it was effective.

At this level, there were thankfully some regular stairs he could use to climb up the side of the temple and almost reached the summit.

Then he walked all the way back down again because he saw a third dead inquisitor on the opposite side. This one he recognized as the Fifth Brother, one Vader considered sending him to eliminate. Another kill with a lightsaber.

Ascending back up the stairs, reaching the peak of the temple, stepping into the mauve light that bathed the ancient structure. There was no one there.

Near the middle of the summit, the glassy material that made up the floor showed a web of cracks, inside of which there appeared to be an empty black pit.

“Hello?!” he called out into the vast emptiness, running low on ideas as his call echoed back to him.

 _...She’s not here, is she?_ he thought to himself as he walked around the temple’s edge, staring out over the underground city while the light of Malachor’s moons shined down through the breach in the obsidian covering.

* * *

Malachor had not been a dream. Everything that had happened there, everything Anakin had said, it was real. Everything _Vader_ had said... Ahsoka wasn’t sure what she wanted to call him anymore.

“Yes, run off with Phoenix Squadron without me, leaving a message explaining the situation should be adequate,” Barriss said in a playful tone as she checked the healed fractures of Ahsoka's ribcage. “Don’t wait for me to get back, no no, I would only slow you all down.”

“You really would’ve liked to finally meet everyone under those circumstances?” Ahsoka asked in a tone that wasn’t playful at all as she carefully breathed in and out.

“I could have worn a helmet, then none of them would have recognized me.”

“Kanan would’ve remembered your voice,” Ahsoka said, aware that Barriss had met the Jedi Knight when he was a child, even helping him in his early training. Lowering her shirt back down after Barriss finished healing her, Ahsoka moved to get up off the gurney.

“Stop,” Barriss said, gently keeping Ahsoka from leaving. “You need more rest, and should eat some real food first. I’m rather concerned by what I found inside your stomach.”

“There wasn’t exactly a variety of options the past few days,” Ahsoka grumbled as Barriss set up a tray over her lap as she rested her back against the raised portion of the gurney.

“Darth Maul evidently survived alone on Malachor for some time,” Barriss said, setting down a bowl of soup.

“Maul survived being cut in half and falling down a shaft, then lived off of garbage for twelve years. He doesn’t count,” Ahsoka grumbled back as she downed a spoonful, annoyed at the reminder of yet another problem. Maul had escaped, once again. At least this time it wasn’t _completely_ her fault.

“Food was less of an issue than contaminants in the water you were drinking,” said Barriss.

“It was all I could find,” Ahsoka said, savoring the first good meal and clean water she’d gotten in days, eagerly drinking the entire glass at once, thinking she should’ve eaten the inquisitors while they were fresh. Yes, that was a disgusting, horrifying idea, she still should’ve done it given the seriousness of the situation. They were already dead, and they were all different species, so it technically wouldn’t have been cannibalism.

Not that she’d needed to survive for very long, as it turned out. Recalling her time trapped in the temple, Ahsoka imagined Barriss coming to her rescue, carrying her up and out to safety.

“You used the Force to lift me, didn’t you?” Ahsoka said, noting that her mental image wasn’t physically plausible.

“Indeed. I made it as far as the stairs, then it became impossible to carry you upwards,” Barriss said before tilting her head over and planting a kiss on Ahsoka’s forehead, and Ahsoka relaxed again. “Would you like to go over what happened? Were you able to learn anything important?”

Taking a deep breath, Ahsoka thought through what happened, from the arrival on Malachor, Ezra meeting Maul, the fight with the inquisitors, and the arrival of Vader.

_‘Then you will die.’_

“We were stopped by Vader, and I’m not sure what the others escaped with,” Ahsoka said quietly. “I couldn’t save him.”

Barriss was quiet for a moment, putting a hand on Ahsoka’s shoulder. “It isn’t your fault. You know that, don’t you?”

No, Ahsoka wouldn’t say it wasn’t her fault. Her mind wandered, wondering if there was something she could’ve done differently. A mistake she shouldn’t have made. Something that could’ve prevented Vader from being created, prevented the evil he’d inflicted upon the galaxy.

There was no shortage of options. So many decisions she’d made during the Clone Wars, so many times she’d wondered if she should’ve gone back, and chosen not to.

She’d tried, she really had, and now it was too late. Against Vader, if she couldn’t stop him, she couldn’t think of anyone who could.

“Ahsoka!” Barriss shouted, then continued sternly, “Whatever he’s made himself into _is not your fault_. You are safe from him, you are going to recover.”

“How do you know that?” Ahsoka said skeptically.

“Because right now, you’re here with me,” Barriss said. “Now please, tell me everything that happened.”

* * *

With two dead inquisitors resting heavily on his shoulders, Galen waited patiently as the ancient elevator lowered him back down to ground level, lugging the two bodies over near where he’d found the other inquisitor.

Finding a break in the stone foundation exposing the soil beneath, Galen searched the bodies for any data cards, identification, or other equipment, then laid them down side-by-side, walked back, retrieved the third inquisitor’s remains, and laid him down alongside the others. With the aid of the Force, he lifted their helmets off, then moved enough soil to cover the bodies in as respectful a manner as could be managed, and set the helmets back down upon the graves.

It was true that Galen had killed certain lesser inquisitors at his master’s command, but they had failed Lord Vader in some way, or they betrayed their master’s trust. These ones had performed their duties to the end, they deserved better than to be left decaying out in the open. Their lightsabers, or at least their crystals, he would hang on to. If the opportunity presented itself, he may fight Ahsoka with one of them, get some justice for the fallen.

If there were three inquisitors here, they must have arrived in some of their TIE fighters, and Galen wanted to find them. Walking around the area, he soon spotted two TIE Advanced v1s off in the distance, with lightsaber slashes across their canopies to prevent them from being taken into space... and the indentations of a third TIE’s landing gear.

Ahsoka was gone. She’d taken one of the inquisitor TIEs and escaped.

No matter, they all had tracking beacons in them, all he had to do was-

 _Wait a second,_ he thought as he stopped considering next steps and noticed another set of indentations from a much larger ship several meters away in the dusty soil. Not a configuration he recognized. There were also a number of odd tracks spreading out from the ship. Some had faded from wind in this underground city, but they were indentations from small, conical feet, probably something with more than two legs. At a certain distance, those tracks changed into what resembled the motion of a wide wheel, and Galen had no idea what made them.

Was this the ship his master had arrived in? He normally used his own TIE Advanced x1. This didn’t seem right.

“Proxy, I need you to walk over to a landing area about one hundred meters east of the pyramid with two abandoned TIEs,” he said into his comm. “Take images of the imprint left by a ship that landed nearby, and run a check to find what model of ship left them.”

“Of course, master,” Proxy replied back pleasantly. “Will you be at the landing area as well?”

“No, Proxy,” Galen said as he walked back to the temple, then sternly adding, “I don’t think Lord Vader would approve of you trying to kill me in the middle of a mission this important.”

“...Understood, master,” the droid replied in a sad tone, like he’d been told his friend was too busy to hang out.

Galen didn’t entirely understand how Proxy’s training protocols were programmed but had noticed in situations like this that reminding him of Lord Vader’s priorities could get him to take the attempted murder down a notch for a day. One less threat to worry about, as Galen honestly didn’t have time to deal with more attempts on his life at the moment.

What he’d found at the pyramid didn’t seem right. There had been an inquisitor on opposite sides of the temple staircase, why were they there? Did Ahsoka kill one, go up, then back down again to kill the other? Why give up the high ground?

Making the ascent back up, Galen took a closer look at where the fighting had occurred. Judging by the dust tracks around where he’d found the Mirialan, and belatedly recognizing that the Terrelian and the gray-skinned inquisitor must have been fighting at the same spot when they were killed, there was no way Ahsoka had come here alone, there was at least one other person on the opposite side of the pyramid.

He nearly lost his balance when his comm unexpectedly turned on.

“Master, I have studied the landing site as you commanded, and believe a G-Class freighter was here not long ago,” Proxy said.

 _A freighter?_ wondered Galen.

The situation continued to get more confusing as he thought about it. There had been three inquisitor TIEs here, one was missing, that G-Class had come and gone, his master had presumably arrived and left in his personal fighter. Did Ahsoka leave in the TIE? Or the freighter? And then who left with the other ship, why were they here? Who were the people accompanying her, where had they gone? Did they leave with her, or before? With what ship? Why would they abandon her in a place like this? Did they come back for her after Lord Vader left, is that where the freighter came into play? That still didn’t tell him what happened to the missing TIE, it wasn’t destroyed, it had clearly lifted off the surface.

Recalling the mutilation of the inquisitors, Galen concluded that Ahsoka probably hadn’t been the one to kill them, but whoever had must’ve wielded a lightsaber, and must’ve been pretty skilled with it to kill three enemies of their strength. Had they taken the other ship, or was there yet another unidentified party involved?

_Wait, master believed Ahsoka was still here for me to capture, he wouldn’t have left knowing there were functional ships for her to leave in, that’s why the TIEs were punctured. He did that. Which means he did it himself, but that TIE was taken before, and the G-Class must’ve arrived after he left..._

The only sound to be heard in that dark, decrepit battlefield was Galen muttering to himself as he walked down the pyramid stairs, then the coarse sound of him descending back down the metal pyramid once again. Ahsoka was gone, and he had no idea where she was or who had rescued her, other than they used a specific kind of ship. Which wasn’t nothing, but the Rebellion used so many kinds of ship, anything they could get their wretched hands on. She could be anywhere in the galaxy by now.

“Proxy, access imperial records, find out if any known rebels commonly use that kind of freighter.”

“I have already done so, master,” replied Proxy, and Galen perked up expectantly as he reached ground level once again. “A G-Class freighter was used by Ahsoka Tano in her early attacks on the Empire following the conclusion of the Clone Wars, while operating with another Jedi survivor, Barriss Offee.”

This was good news. That G-Class was a ship Ahsoka personally used, which meant it was still with her. Her and Barriss Offee, that other rogue Jedi.

Except there were probably tens of thousands of freighters like that in the galaxy. Maybe more. And others in the Empire had access to this information, but had never found Ahsoka and Barriss, nor seen them in years.

 _WHAT HAPPENED HERE?_ Galen thought to himself as it felt as though he’d missed out on something very important and even more interesting.

* * *

“You... traveled forwards and backwards through time?” Barriss said upon finishing both her cup of tea and listening to Ahsoka’s recollection of everything that occurred on Malachor, and beyond.

“Yes. It’s less strange when you have the whole context...” Ahsoka said, fully aware of how weird this sounded after explaining the whole thing out loud, even by her usual standards, trying to sound cheerful as she added, “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

“Not at all. Ahsoka, I would never believe you were insane. I believe this _situation_ is insane, _you_ are as mentally well as you can be,” said Barriss. “It’s not entirely unexpected, considering the nature of the Force. Force-wielders frequently receive visions of the past and future, such possibilities are an intrinsic aspect of the Force. To physically step between times, though...”

“I’m more surprised it had an atmosphere,” Ahsoka said as she took a slow, deep breath.

“Where does this leave us?” asked Barriss. “You witnessed Ezra Bridger, the real Ezra, after he’d grown years older, and despite surviving the confrontation on Malachor, you didn’t contact him. Which means you _won’t_ contact him. Correct?”

“I think so,” Ahsoka replied uncertainly. The realization wasn’t a pleasant one. Ezra and much of the Rebellion spent, or would spend, years believing she had died on Malachor. This wasn’t as significant an inconvenience for her as for others, as few in the rebellion knew she was one of the lead Fulcra.

What exactly would happen if she contacted Phoenix Squadron now?

She couldn’t know, because she wouldn’t do it, because she hadn’t done it.

The future was always in motion, but Ahsoka had unexpectedly taken a shortcut ahead of it.

“What do you believe should be done next?” Barriss asked.

“Business as usual,” Ahsoka said. The identities of all Fulcrum agents were intended to remain secret, Ahsoka’s revealing herself to Phoenix Squadron being an unusual exception. Allowing everyone, including other rebels, to believe she was dead was not only typical for them, it worked to her advantage. “Except now, we'll have keep avoiding Vader.”

“You’re certain he’s still alive, even after the battle on Malachor and the damage to the temple?” asked Barriss.

In the back of Ahsoka mind, she could feel a familiar presence hanging over her, now mixed with a constant sense of approaching danger.

“I’m sure,” Ahsoka said.

* * *

There was no other option, not enough information to work off of without assistance, and Galen dreaded what came next. Lord Vader needed to be informed.

Proxy stood calmly at the Sith temple’s based, bright-yellow photoreceptors impassive as he observed Galen pacing back and forth in front of him. The light of Proxy’s primed and waiting holoemitters illuminated the area in a faint purple glow.

“Master, why did you ask me to meet you here if you have no task for me?” the droid asked.

“I do have a task for you, I’m going to signal Lord Vader in a moment, I just need to think about what I’m going to tell him,” Galen said as he continued pacing.

“You have been thinking for thirty-seven minutes, twenty-four seconds. You have never before required such extensive computation time prior to signaling your master, master,” said Proxy with a bit of concern in his tone.

“That’s because I’ve never before been about to report something like this,” Galen said. “I didn’t fail, exactly- No. I _didn’t_ fail. Ahsoka was gone, I never had a chance to fight her, I didn’t- What am I going to say? That I know what ship she left on? That doesn’t help anything, I may as well say ‘I know she is living on a planet’!”

“Master, I have good news! You no longer need to continue contemplating what you are going to report to Lord Vader,” Proxy said, genuinely trying to be helpful.

Galen turned his head towards the droid and hesitantly asked, “Why not?”

“Because I am currently receiving a signal from Lord Vader. Good luck, master!”

“WHAT? No, nononono-” Galen stammered desperately as holographic projections formed themselves around Proxy. Galen instinctively dropped to one knee, bowed his head, and cleared his throat as fast as he could in preparation as Darth Vader appeared in full, though the apprentice was only looking at his master’s boots.

The hissing breath sent chills up Galen’s spine as silence hung in Malachor’s stale air for a moment, until Galen realized he was being expected to speak first. Time to see if all that thinking about word choice was worth it.

“My master, I must report that despite traveling to Malachor at the highest possible speed, Ahsoka Tano left the planet prior to my arrival.”

“Explain yourself,” Vader replied back, and Galen wasn’t sure how much more clearly he could summarize.

“I- I’ve thoroughly searched the site, and discovered landing marks indicating that she was rescued by a G-Class light freighter, the model she’s been reported using in the early years of the Empire,” Galen explained, trying to keep his voice steady and face stern as he slowly tilted his head up. “Evidence I found in the area indicates the freighter arrived and departed with her. I never had the opportunity to confront her. I’m still searching the area for any other clues.”

Galen waited for a reply as Vader stared down at him. There wasn’t anything to worry about, his master would know what to do.

“Continue your search. I expect you to report back what you discover within the hour,” Vader said.

This was possibly the worst response Galen could’ve heard. There wasn’t anything else to _do_. Ahsoka was gone, gone back to wherever she’d been successfully hiding for years, leaving no traces.

“Wait!” Galen exclaimed before his master could terminate the transmission, and suddenly being the focus of the dark lord’s attention made him regret the outburst and bow his head again. “Master, I’ve been studying the battle that occurred here, but there appear to have been other rebel combatants involved. Can you tell me anything about them? It may help me follow Tano’s trail.”

Speaking in this tone was incredibly disrespectful, but what else could he do? Unless it turned out Ahsoka decided to leave a note for him, he needed information that Vader hadn’t deigned to provide from the beginning.

“The Jedi was assisted by rebels operating from the Lothal sector, known as Phoenix Squadron,” Vader replied. Even at this distance, Galen could feel his master’s anger simmering down. “If you find nothing more on Malachor, pursue her to Lothal.”

“Yes, my master,” Galen said calmly, finally letting out a sigh of relief after the transmission ended. He hadn’t failed, he had instructions, he knew what to do now, his master wasn’t angry. When he looked up again, the hologram of Vader was fizzling away. As had become routine, Galen quickly got to his feet and held Proxy steady as his programming reasserted control of his body, as remote control by Darth Vader had a tendency to leave him slightly off-balance.

“How did it go, master? You appear undamaged, unfortunately for me,” Proxy said as he and Galen walked back to the _Shadow_.

“Better than I’d feared,” Galen said while looking past Proxy into the distance. “When we get to the ship, bring up any and all records we have on Phoenix Squadron. We’re leaving for the Lothal Sector.”

* * *

Mara was disappointed there were no recordings of the governor’s communications with Fulcrum, but his methods of securing his data weren’t as effective as he believed. The password protection of his computer had been incredibly weak, which had gotten Mara’s hopes up for further lapses in security. Fulcrum wouldn’t be the first person she’d destroyed thanks to such lax data security measures.

Surrounded by colorful holographic projections of documents as she sat in her freighter's pilot seat, the space she was working with was soothing, conducive to meditation and thought. In Mara’s opinion, the Force was too vague to rely on for information. That said, the Emperor was expecting results, and she refused to disappoint. If something gave her a lead, she’d gladly follow the Force’s input wherever it led her.

Downing her third cup of caf in the past few hours, Mara fought not to look at her chrono, not caring how long she’d gone without sleep. Time was crucial, especially with an enemy target as significant and elusive as Fulcrum. The more time passed, the more likely word of the Governor Prodric’s termination would reach a rebel informant, and then the data would quickly be worthless.

There was a pattern here amongst the contents of the drive, the governor supplying information on political opponents to the rebels. Of course, he had documentation on the activities of other governors, those whom he was in competition with. There was one in particular whom he not only had records of, but appeared to be collating information into new documents for someone else. Timestamps of file modifications showed the the most recent file which had been compiled was of Senator Drescran. By all appearances a loyal supporter of the Empire, but if Mara acted on appearances alone, she wouldn’t be very good at her job.

A minute later the freighter jumped to hyperspace, taking Mara to her next lead, or if she dared to hope, into the path of Fulcrum.

* * *

“We do possess options,” Barriss said reassuringly. “Are you confident that even the two of us working together couldn’t overpower him?”

Ahsoka replayed the fight with Vader in her head, feeling herself being pushed back by that overwhelming power as she couldn’t come close to breaking his defense. “If we were together, I’d guess our odds would be three to one against us.”

“Perhaps eliminating Palpatine would make capturing Skywalker more practical,” suggested Barriss.

“We can’t beat Palpatine. The two of us have gotten stronger, but he killed an entire team of Jedi masters, including Mace Windu,” Ahsoka said, though Barriss uneasily looked away in response. “What is it?”

“I’ve considered that. The information we uncovered years ago suggested that Palpatine killed all the masters sent after him, but that same information places Anakin Skywalker as part of the ‘assassination attempt’, and says he was killed. We now know that isn’t what occurred. How confident are we that Palpatine defeated those masters without... assistance...?” Barriss slowly worked out the words, knowing how the implications were making Ahsoka feel. The suggestion that not only had Anakin become Palpatine’s apprentice, but he’d saved the chancellor’s life and killed other Jedi to get the position. The worst part was, Barriss was right. Ahsoka knew that.

Whenever Barriss considered something awful, she always ended up being right.

“I’m going to stretch my legs,” Ahsoka said, carelessly getting up off of the gurney and pulling at her intravenous tube. The only reason her food wasn’t tossed everywhere was because Barriss caught the tray in time.

“NO, don’t yank it out like that, why must you always-” Barriss stammered as Ahsoka clumsily removed the tube as she often did and was about to storm off. “Please wait, I didn’t mean-”

“I know what you meant,” said Ahsoka. “Anakin is a Sith Lord, and he has been since Order 66.”

“And for your sake I wish that was not the case,” she replied. "I also know you must be-"

“Barriss, you _don’t_ know what this feels like,” Ahsoka said sharply as she kept walking away, as Barriss’s expression became firmer, not dissuaded so easily.

“Ahsoka, two years ago I lowered Luminara’s disfigured remains onto a funeral pyre and set her alight. I will help you through this, but do not treat me as though I lack experience dealing with loss.”

Sighing, Ahsoka decided not to argue the point, turning aroud to face Barriss. “What do you think we should do now?” she asked.

“We will persist, as we always have,” Barriss said confidently, managing to smile. “You saw Ezra alive from years in the future. That means he’s safe for the near-term, so we can be glad for that.”

"Wish I could say that about Kanan,” added Ahsoka, and the two of them stood in silence for a while, each thinking about how many Jedi remained, knowing one more survivor of their former order would soon die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. [This](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ahsoka_Tano?file=Hera_Fulcrum_Hologram.png#The_Siege_of_Lothal) wasn’t Ahsoka. _Why does nobody but me think that hologram is weird?_
> 
> This really ended up being an odd time for me to start this new story. I've been working on TEotS for so long, and coming up with ideas for this story and the characters to include in anticipation of when it would be done, I must have upwards of 80K words written in drafts for FNB already. But after the Clone Wars finale, I'm reminded of how wonderful a character Ahsoka is (and more than a little annoyed at Barriss's continued absence) so much that I want to pick up right after TEotS ended and focus on them exclusively. That'll have to wait, not that there'll be any shortage of them here.
> 
> The idea of Barriss recovering Luminara’s body is one I only thought about while writing this, and in the context of the inquisitors moving her around to act as bait depending on where they believed Jedi were hiding, it wouldn’t make sense to show now since this story takes place close to two years after that episode of Rebels. [Which is why I wrote about it separately](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23668180).
> 
> A minor thing I debated when writing this was whether the inquisitors’ corpses should’ve been petrified by the superweapon’s discharge like the others. I decided not, because all the statues we see are of people standing and fighting. That weapon only targets living beings, which makes me think it somehow detects the Force itself, befitting a weapon on Malachor.
> 
> I’m curious to see how long it takes someone to figure out who Fulcrum Three is, because that’s not an original character, though I’ve made a lot of changes to keep with the more developed state of Star Wars and my own writing style. Right now I don’t think there’s enough information given to figure it out unless you’re very, very lucky and/or a hardcore fan of some very specific Legends content. To be clear, this is not a challenge for you, so don’t spend hours on Wookieepedia trying to extrapolate everything said, it’s not worth it. I also just realized notes like this will become weird for later readers who see the character’s revealed name in the tags.


	4. Life Goes On

The only light in the _Eclipse’s_ crew quarters was the bright blue swirl of hyperspace peeking through the curtain over its window, dimly and chaotically illuminating Ahsoka’s surroundings as she lay wide awake, Barriss sleeping quietly next to her.

Between irregular work schedules, bouts of sleeplessness, or being separated on missions across worlds with different day-night cycles, it was uncommon for Ahsoka and Barriss to go to sleep at precisely the same time. In their bed, they also never settled on which side they preferred on account of the bed’s position. Their room on the _Eclipse_ was laid out with the longer side of the bed along the back wall, under the window, and as a result whoever decided to go to bed first would sleep close to the wall to leave space for the other whenever she was tired.

There were instances when whoever was on the open side would sleep for a shorter period, or whoever woke up first would be content to keep lying in bed with the other. Other times, this could leave whoever was closest to the wall in a tough position if she wanted to get out, however Ahsoka had mastered a technique of pressing her hands and feet against the opposing walls and climbing up and over, though she also had to tuck her lekku back over her shoulders or they’d droop down and brush against Barriss. Feeling the weakness of her muscles even after a short period of inactivity, Ahsoka quickly passed over Barriss, then silently dropped onto the rug next to the bed, which effectively dampened her landing. When the situations were reversed, Barriss wasn’t tall enough to reach both walls, though Ahsoka had noticed she’d often be up and about regardless, and had no idea how Barriss did that.

Four hours. That’s how long she’d been lying in bed, unable to close her eyes. Every time she felt close to drifting off, it reminded her of what it was like on Malachor, the whispers of the dead creeping at her mind as she grew weaker and weaker over the days, knowing she would eventually succumb once she ran out of energy.

 _I should make Barriss cozier,_ Ahsoka thought as she stood at the side of the bed, shutting everything else out of her mind to take in how beautiful Barriss was as she slept, telekinetically fluffing her pillow.

 _Cozier_.

Ahsoka retrieved another blanket from the cupboard and laid it over Barriss.

_COZIER._

Ahsoka tucked the edges of the blankets to tightly wrap Barriss up.

_Perfect._

Droidekas were following their usual patterns, most of them in sleep mode as they recharged their power cells, but a couple were always up and about dutifully patrolling a ship which had not left hyperspace all day. Just in case something managed to get aboard somehow. Preferring to go unnoticed for now, Ahsoka kept the lights and the noise to a minimum.

Somehow feeling both restless and fatigued, Ahsoka walked over to the galley in her pajamas to get to work, setting several datapads and cards down at the rectangular table nook embedded into one wall.

Living off of filthy groundwater and whatever the proper name was of those little six-legged animals she’d eaten left her with quite an appetite, which she was choosing to satisfy with a massive pot of caf when Cici spotted her in the galley entrance.

“...Hey, Cici,” Ahsoka said quietly as the astromech rolled on in. Better keep the conversation volume down. If the droidekas found out Ahsoka’s mental recovery wasn’t as fast as her physical one, she would be overrun with concerned destroyer droids attempting to comfort her. Perhaps that would be for the best. The droidekas had a perspective on events which Ahsoka couldn’t help but find refreshingly direct. It was almost Jedi-like in its elegant simplicity.

Could they solve the problem by shooting it?

If no, there was nothing to be done about the problem, and they would not burden their minds with worries over such impossibilities.

If yes, well, then there would not be a problem for very much longer.

“Why are you not with Barriss? You always sleep so much better with her around,” said Cici.

“I woke up early,” Ahsoka said with more cheer than she actually felt. “Sleeping with Barriss was even more effective than usual. She’s doing a great job!”

“Don’t condescend to me, meatbag,” Cici replied sharply. “I wasn’t constructed yesterday, I understand the meanings behind vocal intonation and recognize how tired you are. Why are you not resting? Aren’t you tired? And not fully healed?”

Ahsoka felt herself tense up, which she tried to downplay as she took another sip of caf. Allowing herself to relax again, memories raced through her mind against her will. A week ago, she’d been fighting for her life against someone she’d desperately searched for, whom she’d believed long dead, whom she’d grieved over.

_‘Then you will die.’_

Now, she was sitting here at her table. Drinking caf. Acting as though nothing had happened.

“I’d rather not sleep right now,” Ahsoka reluctantly admitted as she took a long sip and looking down at... a report on durasteel used in Star Destroyer manufacturing and how to degrade its quality. Exciting stuff. “I’ve got too much to do.”

“Fighting the Empire, right?” said Cici. “Does this have something to do with what happened on Malachor? Anything I can help with?”

“I don’t think you can help me with that one,” Ahsoka said after a long pause, trying to read about brittle fracture of impure durasteel while images of Vader ripping Cici apart with the Force flashed into her mind.

“You could ask the droidekas,” suggested Cici.

 _Now there’s an idea_ , thought Ahsoka. Droidekas always were a challenge, even for Anakin.

“...Actually, I don’t know if that’s the best option,” Ahsoka said a moment later, pouring more caf into her mug as she imagined a bronze plate with the Fulcrum symbol painted on it in black, cut into pieces and clattering to the ground, a trail of molten metal left by a lightsaber slash slowly cooling. Shuddering, Ahsoka wished she hadn’t thought about that idea.

 _Time to check over those intelligence reports,_ Ahsoka thought, focusing back on her datapad. There was so much to occupy herself with. Other, more important things to think about. Thing she was responsible for. Problems she knew how to solve.

Cargo shipments, recruitment, scouting. Casualties from confrontations with the Empire, lists of both friendly and enemy casualties. Potential new cells to bring into the larger Rebellion, politicians, journalists, and other civilians who needed protection and could help sway public opinion of the Empire’s abuses of power.

“So, um, are we just not having a conversation anymore?” asked Cici, who was still in the room, as Ahsoka failed to hear her. “Hey, Ahsoka!”

“What?” Ahsoka yelped, dropping the three datapads she was holding, wincing as they clattered across the table.

“You’re sure you don’t want to sleep?” Cici asked.

“I am absolutely sure,” Ahsoka said as Cici warily rolled backwards out of the room.

* * *

There was a brief moment of alarm as Barriss woke up the following morning and she found herself unable to move in any direction, panicking and writhing for a moment until she realized she was being restrained by nothing more serious than layers of blankets.

 _REALLY, Ahsoka? On your first night back?_ Barriss thought while wriggling out of the blanket cocoon as she had so many times before. She shouldn’t complain, really. If Ahsoka was feeling in a playful mood, even for a moment, best to encourage that.

“Good morning, Ahsoka,” Barriss said happily upon finding Ahsoka in their dining area finishing off a mug of caf. Only caf. “...How long have you been awake?”

“Not too long,” Ahsoka said, as Barriss’s eyes drifted over to multiple cups worth of discarded grounds sloppily left sitting out on the counter in their filters.

“Ahsoka, did you sleep at all last night?” Barriss said, tone making it clear Ahsoka would be wise to give an exact, honest answer.

“...No,” Ahsoka replied, getting up to make another cup.

“Stop, stop that. No more drinking caf, you need real food,” Barriss said, blocking off Ahsoka’s path and gently pushing her back to the table, Ahsoka reluctantly sitting back down as Barriss took her mug. “Is there any specific reason you didn’t sleep?”

“I already spent a few days unconscious on Malachor. Guess I’m not tired.”

“You know as well as I do that is not how sleeping works,” Barriss said, heating up another bowl of soup for Ahsoka and a pouring a tall glass of bantha milk. “There’s little I can do about the caffeine you’ve already ingested, now this will at least help in your recovery from days of malnourishment.”

“Yeah, okay,” Ahsoka said, eating a spoonful and finding her appetite quickly returning once presented with real cooking, taking a long drink of blue milk.

Seated across the table from Ahsoka, Barriss sipped a cup of tea and opened up a ration packet on her plate, waiting for Ahsoka to finish eating before asking any more questions. Best not to interrupt now that she was cooperating.

“Is there anything you feel comfortable discussing?” Barriss asked once Ahsoka was finished.

“Nothing we didn’t already go over,” Ahsoka said, shutting her eyes, rapidly taking in and letting out a deep breath.

“Considering what happened, it’s completely normal for you to require more than one day to recover,” Barriss said. “Nor would I be bothered by repeating a discussion.”

“If you have questions, go ahead,” Ahsoka said, sinking into a bad mood.

That was a deflection, acting like the only reason to talk more was if Barriss didn’t understand something. Slightly annoyed, but brushing off the comment, Barriss decided that if this was how Ahsoka was responding, she wouldn’t prod her over it.

“Well, what have you been occupying yourself with?” Barriss asked, leaning forward to read Ahsoka’s datapads upside down. Industrial sabotage operations targeting durasteel suppliers, very intriguing.

“Barriss, I’m not tired,” Ahsoka said, the bags under her eyes telling a different story.

“...I did not suggest you were,” Barriss replied.

“...Right,” Ahsoka said, wearily blinking a few times as she showed Barriss her datapad. “I need to catch up on what’s been happening with the Rebellion, and I’ve got some ideas for new operations I want to run by you.”

Pausing for a moment, Barriss reluctantly allowed Ahsoka to help, primarily as an opportunity to keep her in view. The situation couldn’t possibly get any worse.

 _Oh, I have proven that idea wrong before,_ Barriss thought to herself. _I am rather inventive._

“Very well, let’s start with our current objective. We are presently traveling to Moseprous to implicate its senator in treason and erode the political structure of the Empire while simultaneously raiding his personal fortune for the Rebellion. I’m responsible for counterintelligence against Senator Drescran directly, while other rebel operatives and slicers have obtained access to his personal funds,” Barriss said, pulling up maps of the planet’s capitol building, lists of the senator’s peers, and how they could be expected to react.

“We’re already doing that?” asked Ahsoka. “Right, it’s been over a week- Wait, wasn’t this already supposed to be done by now?”

Frantically checking the dates, Ahsoka was realizing the mission was specifically Barriss’s job, and had been delayed because of the need for the detour to Malachor.

“The timeframe is still manageable. Senator Descran is currently on his homeworld, and will remain there for the next several days,” said Barriss.

“But it’ll take us over a week to get there from Malachor.”

“We’re already in transit to Moseprous... which is not very far from Malachor at all. Ahsoka, how many consecutive hours have you been awake? And being trapped within an illusion of the dark side does not count,” asked Barriss, who was noticing how delayed Ahsoka’s reactions were. “Don’t make me reexplain what prolonged lack of sleep does to a person’s brain.”

“I remember the last lecture,” Ahsoka said as she slumped back in her seat.

“Ahsoka, please follow me, this is very important for the success of the Rebel Alliance,” Barriss said, standing leading Ahsoka back to their quarters.

“What is it?” asked Ahsoka.

“This bed. Get into it,” Barriss said, pushing Ahsoka towards it as the latter unexpectedly smirked.

“Wow, I didn’t think you’d be in the mood-”

“ _That was not a proposition, you need to get some sleep_ ,” Barriss said sharply, pushing harder and ignoring Ahsoka’s suggestion, and her grin. Numerous dates had made Barriss realize that Ahsoka was absolutely not ‘suave’, rather, she blundered about so confidently no one noticed she was lost. “The galaxy will not fall because Ahsoka Tano needed to get away from it all.”

“We have to focus on the larger picture if we’re going to defeat the Empire, and I need to catch up on everything that's happened,” Ahsoka said as she took a step forward out of Barriss’s reach, then tried to walk around Barriss and out the door. “Don’t waste your time worrying about me-”

“It is _never_ a waste of time to me. _You_ are never a waste of time to me. Out of every choice I’ve made throughout these wars, helping you is something I’ve never doubted was the right decision,” Barriss said as she blocked off the door, hooking her feet into the sliding door slots and gripping the edges so tightly her knuckles went white. “You are not leaving. You need to rest.”

“Barriss... _Barriss_ ,” Ahsoka grumbled as she tried to gently move Barriss out of the way. There was no question that Ahsoka was physically stronger, but Barriss wasn’t a weakling, and she was feeling especially motivated at the moment. The durasteel doorframe would probably give way before her fingers did.

“Don’t treat me like I can’t handle this!” yelled Ahsoka, to Barriss’s confusion.

“I am not treating you like you are incapable of anything, I am treating like someone I love and who is being uncooperative in the course of her recovery following a physically and emotionally traumatic event!” Barriss said desperately, running low on air towards the end.

“Fine. Go,” Ahsoka said irritably as she backed off. “I’ll try to get some rest.”

* * *

After Barriss left the room, Ahsoka made no effort to get any rest. Knowing that Barriss was probably back sending transmissions from the cockpit, Ahsoka paced around for several minutes before trying to open the door controls and do some fiddling. Disengaging the seal, Ahsoka could slowly, quietly slide the metal doors open by hand, which she did, making a gap just large enough for her to be faced with a trio of droidekas standing guard.

“Guys, what are you doing?” Ahsoka asked as she considered whether there was sufficient space to squeeze past them.

The droidekas explained that the Ahsoka command unit required maintenance, and was to remain in the designated zone until the Barriss unit had completed repairs.

“You can’t be serious,” Ahsoka said, though she could tell by the look in the droidekas’ sensors they were not in a joking mood, and sealed the door back up without another word.

Turning to her right, Ahsoka wondered how well this containment would work. The ship’s refresher had two doors, one to the hallway, and one connecting directly to the crew quarters. Maybe the droidekas hadn’t thought to block that one.

Upon trying to cut through the refresher, she was met by another pair of droidekas at the door and was informed that she would find escape quite impossible. Peeking her head out, even more droidekas were clinging to the walls, blocking any path out.

 _I never should’ve given them magnetic feet,_ Ahsoka thought to herself as she closed the door and went back to grousing. This actually made her feel a bit better. This was interesting now. This was a _challenge_ now.

* * *

Finding a way to help Ahsoka was a dilemma for Barriss. It was increasingly clear there wasn’t really a ‘good’ way to deal with this, because the situation was utterly horrible no matter how it was examined. Ahsoka loved Anakin Skywalker as a friend, mentor, and brother. Now he wanted to kill her, and she was blaming herself for it. The earlier discussion had chipped away at her resistance a bit, but it wasn’t enough.

Ahsoka was definitely trying to get out of their quarters right now without Barriss noticing. What she intended to do, Barriss had no idea, and in her exhausted state Ahsoka probably didn’t either, which was why the droidekas would be attending to her.

Asking Ahsoka over and over if she felt better yet wasn’t going to do anything except become irritating. Physical affection would only serve to avoid the real problem. Barriss knew repression and denial when she saw it. Right now, rest was the best thing for Ahsoka, especially with sleep deprivation making her irritable.

The whole situation left Barriss with mixed feelings as she fit this new information into the sequence of events. If Skywalker hadn’t betrayed and destroyed the Jedi, Ahsoka never would’ve freed Barriss from prison, and they never would’ve repaired their relationship, or let it grow. That was a horribly selfish thought, and it was also the truth. For better or worse, the state of the galaxy was what brought Ahsoka and Barriss together.

_Thank you, Skywalker. Thank you for ensuring my liberation._

Various options came to Barriss’s mind for how to help Ahsoka, most of them mediocre.

The cruelest option was to help Ahsoka get over Skywalker by convincing her that he wasn’t worth the effort, and never had been. He was a terrible person whom she needn't bother caring about.

 _That’s merely your own contempt manifesting,_ Barriss told herself. During the Clone Wars, Barriss considered the primary failing of the Jedi was that they didn’t search for peaceful options, instead passively, or at best reluctantly, choosing between the options provided by the Chancellor until it destroyed them all. Skywalker was different, eager for the fight, and Barriss loathed him for it. Learning more information about him, such as Ahsoka discovering his massacre of a village of Sand People during a visit to Tatooine, only reinforced her low opinion.

Stronger still as that loathing had become in light of recent revelations, Barriss would not provide another avenue for Skywalker’s mistakes to harm Ahsoka.

_What will help her?_

This was another problem at work she’d dealt with before: Ahsoka’s intense drive to get things done colliding with the fact it would be better if she did nothing. It was all but impossible to get around that one.

_I should check up on her to make sure she’s-_

“What is happening here?” Barriss said upon walking back to their quarters and finding Ahsoka lying on the hallway floor, struggling to get up as two of the droidekas were sitting on her back and legs to pin her down, four others gathered around her.

“I am finding that escape is quite impossible,” Ahsoka groaned, the words muffled as she was facing down into the metal flooring.

“Off! Everyone off of the command unit,” Barriss said, shooing the droidekas away from Ahsoka and helping her up.

“I had that handled. Just needed to wait for them to get into the right position,” Ahsoka said as Barriss pulled her back into their quarters and closed the door.

Barriss sighed. “Ahsoka, we need to talk. The way you’re acting, trying to go on like everything is fine, this isn’t good for you.”

“Barriss, I’ve recovered from worse things in less time,” said Ahsoka.

“Have you? I've told myself the same thing before. You keep trying and trying to think of a way to get through this, stamping down how terrified you are that any day you will be killed, hoping this will all somehow end on its own,” said Barriss. “You think that you have to do something, _anything_ , to make this right, when the best thing for you would be to stop. Stop and wait and give yourself time to process what’s happened. Pushing yourself on doesn’t help, it only leaves you weakened.”

Ahsoka's breathing was getting less steady as she replied, “It’s okay-”

“This is NOT ‘okay’! Nothing about what happened is okay! Nothing about what Skywalker put you through is okay! You are not obligated to move on and accept that, you do not need to ignore it!” Barriss stopped as she felt a shift in Ahsoka’s emotions. Within all that turmoil, all the memories, all the hopes and fears, something broke. Ahsoka, her face stoic and collected a second earlier, twitched and scrunched up as tears broke loose from her eyes, which then shut tightly as she bawled. Barriss caught Ahsoka as she nearly collapsed to her knees, helping her over to the side of the bed as she trembled, holding her tightly. “I meant- you’re okay! Everything is going to be okay!”

For a long time, the two held each other closely until Ahsoka finally ran out of tears. Lacking tissues in the immediate vicinity, Barriss called a first aid kit to her hand and offer Ahsoka a roll of bandages. Sniffling and shaking, Ahsoka leaned on Barriss as she wiped her eyes and running nose.

“There must have been something I could’ve done,” Ahsoka said wearily to herself.

“Think the situation through. What would you have done?” asked Barriss.

There was silence as Ahsoka thought about what to say, what answer she could give. “I shouldn’t have left the Jedi.”

“Then you would have been killed with the rest of the order,” replied Barriss.

“It might not have happened if I was with Anakin, if I had been there to stop him,” said Ahsoka.

“You don’t know why he became a Sith, so how do you know your presence would have prevented it?”

“It would’ve at least been different.”

“How essential do you believe Skywalker really was to Palpatine’s plot?” asked Barriss. “Had he not been selected for corruption, the clones would’ve still destroyed most of the Jedi without him. Perhaps Grievous or Dooku would’ve been allowed to remain alive longer, led the attack on the temple in his place. There wasn’t anything you could have done.”

“At least I would’ve been there with him,” Ahsoka muttered.

This wasn’t working at all. Barriss couldn’t realistically expect to remedy Ahsoka’s anger and misery over the fate of her mentor and close friend, but what she was saying seemed to be making Ahsoka more miserable.

“You already did what was best,” Barriss said, putting a hand on Ahsoka’s cheek to turn towards her. “During the end of the Clone Wars, there was no way you could’ve saved Skywalker. There was a chance on Malachor, and it didn’t work, because _he_ made the choice not to take it.”

“There had to have been something I could’ve done,” Ahsoka repeated emptily.

“Evidently not,” Barriss said, taking Ahsoka’s hand. “Because if there ever was a chance, I believe you would’ve succeeded.”

Ahsoka yanked her hand away.

“Skywalker is not some child who needed you to watch him and make sure he didn’t make poor decisions,” Barriss told her. “ _You_ were the apprentice, not the other way around, and whatever he has become is not your fault!”

“Barriss, I know you’re trying to help, I really do, but _you don’t understand_ ,” Ahsoka said. Before Barriss could protest that assertion as she had before, Ahsoka proved how right she was. “I tried to kill him. Not incapacitate him, not capture him, not slow him down to protect someone else. I was trying to kill Anakin with every bit of strength I had, and I wanted to see him die for the things he’d done to the Jedi, to the Republic, to the entire galaxy, and to me. The worst part is, out of everything I’m feeling right now, my biggest regret is that _I wasn’t strong enough to make it happen_.”

Taking a deep breath, Barriss thought about what to say, or if she should say anything at all to such an admission.

“You were right, and I am sorry, I didn’t understand,” was what she eventually settled on. “You wanted to kill him. I believe you. You have every right to be angry at him. What do you want to do now?”

“I _don’t know_ -”

“That’s okay! It’s okay not to know!” Barriss blurted out. “In that case, I suggest you do nothing. Stay still. Allow yourself to _rest.”_

Ahsoka nodded, a fresh pair of tears flowed out from her eyes as she fell back onto the bed.

“Ahsoka, please wait for a moment, I have an idea which may help to ease your mind,” Barriss said, leaving to go get a datapad and a set of particular files from their archives.

 _Ease your mind, or make your mental state even worse,_ Barriss thought to herself.

Returning to a still-sniffling Ahsoka, Barriss had a number of images and articles loaded onto the pad, scrolling through them until settling on the best image of the girl within them smiling. Not part of a staged publicity image, a genuine smile as she stood with her family.

“Leia’s efforts in the Senate has been proceeding well,” Barriss said, tensely holding out hope for Ahsoka’s reaction while offering the datapad. “And her activities with the Rebellion are quite impressive. She’s supplied a number of cells with desperately needed capital ships. Growing into quite an inspirational leader, all of Alderaan is looking forward to the day she becomes queen.”

For several minutes Ahsoka quietly read through everything, until she ran out of articles and tears, even managing to smile a few times before handing the datapad back to Barriss.

“Barriss, thank you, this-” Ahsoka took a deep breath while Barriss let out the one she’d been holding. Having let so much stress out, Ahsoka wiped her tears one last time before willingly lying down. “That helped.”

“You’ll see her again someday,” Barriss said, caressing Ahsoka's face as the latter closed her eyes. “Sleep well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I work a lot of humor into my writing, and sometimes I worry that mixing too much in with darker stuff messes with the tone and makes it awkwardly dissonant. Then I work a little harder to mesh it together so the awkward dissonance IS the tone.
> 
> Barriss: *is sleeping*  
> Ahsoka: Must. Create. Barrito.
> 
> Any way, so everyone is aware because I adore the artist's work, there's a barrissoka fan webcomic [Contrasts](http://contrastscomic.thecomicseries.com) with a new host website and hopefully a new chapter coming in the near future. If you like my work, you'll probably like Contrasts.


	5. My Condolences

Ahsoka Tano’s friends in the Rebellion believed her to be dead. Surely it wouldn’t be long before she arrived to correct that error and reassure them.

That’s what Galen had believed when he’d watched from within his cloaked ship as rebels from Phoenix Squadron destroyed a small imperial task force when raiding a transport for supplies, then he followed them undetected to the uninhabited moon of Clost, in orbit around the planet Frates. With the _Shadow_ in geosynchronous orbit over a wasteland where the rebel ships landed, presumably to distribute the stolen supplies, Galen waited for a signal, or a rendezvous from the Jedi.

It had been days. Days, and Ahsoka had still not contacted Phoenix Squadron with news of her survival.

This was taking too long. This wasn’t how things usually went. Galen would be given a target and a location, he would go there, sneak or fight past whatever defenses were between him and the target, the target would usually monologue a bit about why they won’t be killed and they would be the ones killing Galen, Galen would kill them anyway. This was wrong. This was wrong and it was freaking him out because his master was expecting results, and soon.

What else could he do? Lord Vader told him to go to Malachor, so he went to Malachor, and Ahsoka wasn’t there. He got new information, searched for possible leads, and the only one worth pursuing took him to this rebel fleet, and Ahsoka still _wasn’t here_. Proxy had been monitoring transmissions, but nothing came in from Ahsoka or went out to her. There was nowhere else to go.

There were two lesser Jedi in Phoenix Squadron, Kanan Jarrus and Ezra Bridger. If Galen could capture them, their connection to Ahsoka through the Force might be enough to draw her out into a confrontation. That was risky, though. Even with the _Rogue Shadow’s_ stealth systems letting him get close enough to the rebels undetected, moving in and out with two enemy Jedi of indeterminate power who had a crew of rebels defending them was no small task, as shown by the intelligence reports he’d read on this rebel cell. The common troops had numbers even if they weren’t a serious individual threat with their slipshod weapons and personal protection, and he didn’t like the look of the Lasat and that Mandalorian girl, especially if her armor was proper beskar. And once he had them, if he wasn’t careful when Ahsoka came and they got loose, there’d be three Jedi for him to deal with rather than one. Then there was the added problem of Barriss Offee, of whose involvement Galen was uncertain aside from she and Ahsoka working together in the past.

Focusing on the dark side, Galen drew on its power, reassuring himself of success and ignoring that kind of doubtful thinking. If he wasn’t powerful enough to accomplish his goal, he’d simply have to take that power from the Force. Failure was not tolerable.

Realizing that his original plan would presumably still involve confronting Jarrus and Bridger as he was expecting Ahsoka in this location anyway, Galen decided it may actually be smarter to deal with them first. Assuming Ahsoka actually cared enough about them to check, which so far didn’t seem to be the case. Being so focused on remaining unattached, Jedi didn’t care about anyone else, not even each other.

This wasn’t what he was good at. He’d never hunted down anyone across the galaxy before, and as he read through training manuals for the ISB, he realized how complex it was. People with more expertise than him had been hunting down Jedi for a longer time, and Ahsoka Tano had avoided them all.

Galen quickly brought up an image of Ahsoka to check that yes, the symbol of the immensely secretive Fulcrum network was the natural markings on her forehead. Subtle. How had Imperial Intelligence not found her when this was her usual level of discretion? Maybe if the people assigned to hunt down rebels were so much less competent than him, he’d be able to find Ahsoka on his own with less troubled than he’d feared.

_I’d better figure this out._

If he didn’t at least come up with a lead soon, if Vader grew disappointed with his work-

 _Better not to think about that,_ Galen thought with a shudder. Focus on finding Ahsoka Tano. In all of these mission reports. Without any experience in the area of tracking. He’d never needed to travel to multiple systems for one mission, nor been free to move around like this.

Galen wanted to shout.

Not in the _Rogue Shadow_ , though, and especially not while he was at the controls. Exerting his control of the dark side while inside a relatively small ship drifting through the vacuum of space wouldn’t end well. That, he knew from experience.

It was time to get in some meditating. Meditating made him feel better.

_Peace is a lie, there is only passion._

_Through passion, I gain strength._

_Through strength, I gain power._

_Through power, I gain victory._

_Through victory, my chains are broken._

_The Force shall free me._

This calmed Galen for a moment. Only for a moment.

_If the Force can free me, WHY CAN’T THE FORCE TELL ME WHERE AHSOKA TANO IS-_

_Focus, focus your anger. See her in your mind, the enemy you must destroy._

_No, wait, I’m supposed to capture her, I can’t destroy her._

That’s right, Galen needed to take Ahsoka back alive, and was only now realizing he hadn’t given very much thought as to exactly how he was going to do that. Where was he going to put her? The _Rogue Shadow_ had no brig, and no restraints. He could improvise with some cable, lock her inside his quarters for the trip back to his master’s fortress on Mustafar, but that was about it. That still wasn’t adequate, not for a Jedi as resourceful as Ahsoka. He didn’t even own blasters or anything with a stun setting.

Getting to his feet, Galen sighed and paced around as he stared up out the ship’s window at the moon above. One more day. Then he’d strike. At least now if his master contacted him, he’d have a solid plan to move forward on.

_Where are you, Ahsoka Tano? What are you plotting?_

* * *

Sitting on the side of the bed, bundled up in blankets, sipping a mug of hot chocolate, Ahsoka felt both utterly ridiculous and wonderfully comfortable as Barriss sat in a collapsible chair next to her, extrapolating imperial fleet movements and compiling data for distribution to cells, helping them coordinate their attacks. Ahsoka had recently woken up after a full night of sleep, or perhaps a full day. Such things weren’t really relevant when in hyperspace.

As Barriss dutifully worked, Ahsoka noticed she was glancing her way a few times a minute. Eventually Barriss built up to breaking the silence. “I hate to sound like a glitched holorecording-”

“I’m feeling a little better,” Ahsoka said, anticipating Barriss’s question. Despite how miserable she’d been, Barriss’s persistence with Ahsoka was paying off, between eating sanitary food, sleeping for longer than two hours at a stretch in an actual bed for the first time in over a week, and crying so much it felt like all the sadness had been wrung out of her brain. Ahsoka drew her legs out from under the covers, ready to get up and back to work until Barriss raised an eyebrow, resulting in Ahsoka reluctantly settling back into the bed. “...In fact, I feel so much better I will remain in bed resting until I feel even better than I do right now.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” said Barriss. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

“Not at the moment... And hey, if it gets worse again, I could always try some of your antidepressants,” Ahsoka jokingly suggested while Barriss took the comment very seriously.

“Leaving aside the simple fact that you should _never_ take someone else’s medication because you believe your symptoms are similar, we are different species, Ahsoka, that will not help you. We don’t even have the same neurotransmitters,” said Barriss.

“Fine,” Ahsoka grumbled, lying in bed for a moment before asking, “Can you get me a datapad and the most recent reports? I know I should rest, but reading is something I can do lying down covered in blankets, and I really should be getting back up to speed.”

“Certainly,” Barriss said, leaving to retrieve the equipment for Ahsoka as the two of them quietly caught up on reports from various rebel cells and their information channels into the imperial government and military, both of them formulating the next round of plots to break the Empire down bit by bit.

Acquiring credits and resources to keep a hidden naval force fed, fueled, and maintained was a logistical nightmare. On the positive side, experience analyzing such problems made the Fulcra aware of how to most efficiently damage the Imperial Navy. Everyone in the Rebellion dreamed of the day when they could marshal fleets to fight Star Destroyers on equal footing. Ahsoka’s idea of double agents altering the power systems to rapidly burn out the artificial lights proved as devastating for operational efficiency as it was disappointingly mundane.

Whenever a blackmailing operation or theft was pulled off, funds were directed through shell companies, which Cici spent time making, able to run through the process faster than anyone else. Imperial deregulation of such things made the creation of such organizations exceedingly easy.

“I’ve got more shells inside me than an artillery depot!” the astromech liked to boast.

The money for the current operation was taken from the target senator's personal fortune, access to bank accounts obtained through a combination of expert slicing and assistance from a particularly spiteful ex-wife. Then it would be distributed to a combination of several dissidents who would soon go into hiding anyway, as well as genuinely loyal government officials in various positions. Evidence of money received by the former would further incriminate the latter.

After a few hours of reading, now caught up on the highest priority reports, Ahsoka began feeling tired again. Tired, and slowly coming up with some new ideas on a multitude of subjects.

“Barriss, I want to talk to you,” said Ahsoka, to which Barriss immediately perked up to focus on her, setting her datapad down onto her lap and not breaking eye contact or even blinking as it accidentally slid off and loudly clattered onto the metal floor. “...I don’t want to put more stress on you, since you’ve been pulling my weight while I was in the Lothal Sector, and now this-”

“Are you joking?” Barriss said enthusiastically. “The love of my life is in need of my help! Nothing could possibly give me more motivation.”

While neither one of them was very good at taking care of herself, they were exceedingly driven when taking care of each other. Accepting the encouragement, Ahsoka asked, “What do you think would happen if I tried talking to Anakin again?”

“That’s... far too dangerous,” Barriss said, stiffening up and not smiling any more. “What I think would happen is he’ll attempt to murder you again.”

“I’m not saying I want to fly up into his Star Destroyer for a chat,” said Ahsoka. “I’m not going to risk that. But he must have access to a comm, if I could convince him to talk to me without getting into lightsaber range, maybe I’d make more progress. Maybe there’s a way for me to help him. After all, I was able to help you.”

“Perhaps... Whatever plan you end up devising, please recall that I _wanted_ to be helped,” Barriss warned, a bit doubtful of whether this would work. “So long as you don’t put yourself in danger, I'll support you in the attempt. If you could speak to him again, what would you say? How and why would this time turn out differently?”

“I want to ask him questions, mainly. Find out why he’s working for the Emperor,” said Ahsoka. “I’d like to try. And it isn’t as if we’d really be at risk, we can transmit from the middle of some intersecting hyperspace routes, then jump out after a few minutes.”

“Earlier, you said you’re certain he’s still alive?” asked Barriss.

“I’m sure.”

“Does he know you’re alive as well?”

In the back of her mind, Ahsoka still felt that darkness looming over her, and more explicitly recalled that Vader must have seen her vanish when Ezra rescued her from the fight. “He does.”

“I have an idea,” Barriss said, leaving the room for a moment and returning with another method of concealment: an ysalamiri.

The half-meter long, furry lizard-like creatures had been genetically engineered tens of thousands of years ago with an unusual power to disrupt a Force-sensitive's connection to the Force. The creatures bred asexually, and could be kept alive with such ease that over the years Ahsoka and Barriss had built enclosed habitats scattered around the galaxy in close proximity to small bases and safehouses with the intent of blocking Palpatine’s awareness of them.

From what Barriss had determined, the ysalamiri were originally created to oppose the Rakatan Infinite Empire, blocking the conquerors’ connection to the Force and disabling the war machines they empowered with it. It was rather fitting the creatures were again being used to drive back an empire of the dark side.

“Before you do anything, I want to ensure you’ll be protected, even at a great distance,” Barriss said, petting Mace WinTwo’s furry little head. “Does that help?”

“A little bit, yes,” Ahsoka asked, the darkness surrounding her being driven back. “Sorry about yesterday, I was kind of, um...”

“Snippy?” Barriss suggested, to which Ahsoka reached over and lightly punched her shoulder.

“Yes,” Ahsoka replied poutily.

“If that’s the worst I have to tolerate through this ordeal, I can certainly manage,” said Barriss.

* * *

“I’m sorry,” Hera said, alone in the bridge of the _Liberator_ as it waited on the surface of Clost. “I didn’t get to know Ahsoka very well, but she gave her life to protect Kanan and Ezra. I wish I could thank her for that.”

“Ahsoka Tano was aware of the risks. She has always been aware,” her Fulcrum contact said, the projection of a head and shoulders concealed by a hooded mantle hovering in front of her. As always, Hera could only see indistinct shadows within the hood. “I’m sure she’d be honored by your gratitude.”

“Doesn’t mean this isn’t a loss,” replied Hera. “Where does this leave the Fulcrum network? And the Rebellion?”

“You may rest assured that the events of Malachor will not significantly affect the conflict with the Empire. The situation is not entirely-” Fulcrum began, stopping suddenly, and from the slight movement of the shoulders and turning of the head, it appeared the agent had turned off the sound from their end. While Hera understood the need for protecting identities, Hera wondered who was under that hood, and where they were. Hera assumed they were talking with someone else, and further wondered why this third party wasn’t interacting directly. The conversation resumed before Hera could inquire, as Fulcrum asked, “How is Ezra Bridger recuperating?”

“Not well,” Hera sighed. “He blames himself for what happened, to both Ahsoka and Kanan, and doesn’t want to speak to the rest of us. Meanwhile Kanan can’t offer much support, since he’s back at Chopper Base recovering from being blinded. At least Maul got rid of three inquisitors before he fled.”

“And what of the clone trooper Rex?”

“He’s in mourning, too. Handling it well, though that doesn’t really surprise me,” said Hera. “I’ve seen how strong-willed the clones can be. It’s in his genetics.”

“Rex has experienced greater losses in the past. I’m certain they will all recover, given time. As long as Chopper Base remains concealed from the Empire, it will act as the hub of Alliance operations in that oversector,” said Fulcrum, brusquely moving on to more practical concerns. “Regarding the supplies needed for the fleet. You’re receiving an influx of credits, courtesy of Senator Drescran. Enough to cover the fuel costs you specified, and other necessities.”

“Good to hear... What should we do with Ahsoka’s A-Wing?” asked Hera.

“It belongs with the Rebellion,” Fulcrum said after a moment. “Use it as you see fit. Fulcrum out.”

* * *

“I was just starting to get fond of that A-Wing,” Ahsoka said as Barriss shut down the holoprojector and removed the shroud covering her face. The hood alone couldn’t be relied on to block out all facial features.

“Captain Syndulla and her pilots have more need of it than you,” Barriss pointed out as the ever-faithful _Eclipse_ jumped back into hyperspace and continued on towards Moseprous. Deactivating and purging the transmitter’s memory, she stowed it back in its compartment where anyone who somehow came across it would mistake it for junk parts.

“You should see her in action. We keep giving her starfighters, she’ll demolish the Empire’s entire Lothal sector fleet on her own before long,” Ahsoka said as the two returned to their quarters. Ahsoka wanted to be present for the communication, but Barriss wasn't finished enforcing her bedrest. “How much longer until we reach our destination?”

“We’ll be arriving at Moseprous tomorrow,” Barriss said, as Ahsoka mentally plotted out the current timeline.

Once their current missions were taken care of, she could work on ways of reaching Anakin. Taking action, making plans, not stewing in confusion and uncertainty. There was a way out of this, and Ahsoka was increasingly confident she could find it.

“Still looking for ways to make me feel better?” Ahsoka playfully asked as she returned to bed.

“You have a suggestion?” asked Barriss, eager to help.

“Yes, I do,” Ahsoka said, sliding over to one side of the bed. Realizing what she was getting at, Barriss blushed a reddish-brown for a moment before smiling, removing her mantle, and climbing into bed.

* * *

There was something strange about the rebel fleet, Galen could feel it. Or rather, something strange aboard it. The roiling anger and cunning, it felt... it felt like the aura of the Malachor temple. Perhaps the rebels had brought some artifact back with them.

“Master, we intercepted a recent transmission, now finished, however the encryption is not one the Empire has broken,” Proxy said, interrupting Galen’s meditation.

“Do you think it could’ve been from Ahsoka?”

“There is no way to be certain, master,” said Proxy. “I have recorded the data, but without the encryption key to process it, there is no way of determining its origin or contents.”

“An encryption key- the rebels on the moon here must have it, right?” asked Galen, who wasn’t entirely clear on how these things worked.

“Indeed, master. However, I must warn you that it is common practice for rebel cells to destroy such keys during an attack to prevent capture.”

Staring out the window at the moon above them, Galen weighed his options. Fighting his way through a small army of rebels was doable, if he was smart about it and picked them off gradually. There were too many of them to kill without someone sounding an alarm, especially with two Jedi in the vicinity. Then he’d have to capture Ahsoka’s friends, and those rebels were crafty enough to escape from Grand Moff Tarkin’s Star Destroyer under the eyes of the Grand Inquisitor. Galen didn’t hold either of them in very high regard, but that was still an accomplishment.

Or he could sneak in, steal this encryption key from their communication system, and hopefully get a clue as to where Ahsoka was. That was its own challenge, but one he was similarly adept at.

Making his decision, Galen brought up schematics of a CR90 corvette, noting potential entry points and interior routes to the comm station and computer cores.

* * *

Mara’s boxy little personal transport settled into the public landing pad on the surface level of Moseprous’s capital city, Sevuria. For several minutes, she sat in the cockpit of her deceptively junky ship, eyes closed as she reached out into the Force, feeling the lives of the people around her. What they felt, how they behaved, informing Mara of how she should act to blend in seamlessly and innocuously before she slung on a backpack and exited the ship.

The geography of the city was based around the landscape’s daunting geological features, enormous chasms running hundreds of meters wide and deep, crisscrossing over thousands of square kilometers, stone arches frequency passing over the divides and allowing pedestrian access to the top surfaces. On her walk down enormous staircases built into the chasm walls, the most difficult part was appearing generally unimpressed with her magnificent surroundings, hundreds of meters of colorful multilayered rock rising up all around her as green water flowed beneath, metal and stone architecture forming the infrastructure of the city spreading across the stone walls. Anyone who’d lived here their entire lives wouldn’t stand and gawk, so neither would she, focusing straight ahead, moving with other pedestrians, and making her way to the middle of the city where the walls became separated by a few kilometers, forming an emerald green basin. The imperial headquarters, a circular structure laid against the wall on the opposite edge of the basin, a royal blue imperial crest covering the imperial architecture standing in the heart of the local capital.

The deeper she went, the easier it was not to be impressed, because this planet was revolting the closer she looked. It struck Mara that it’d been a long time since she’d visited a planet without being specifically commanded to by the Emperor, and none of those worlds were as repulsive as Moseprous. Touring the lower levels of Sevuria and seeing the rancid state of the city, the Rebellion had to be responsible for this somehow. Humans and aliens crowded into the lower levels amid decaying infrastructure. More than one pickpocket tried to snag some valuables from her bag, only for Mara to casually dislocated one of the thief's fingers with the Force while belying she'd noticed what was happening at all. There was also so much pollution being dumped into the water flowing around at the bottom you could probably kill a person by holding them under and letting it eat at their skin. Something to consider if Mara decided Drescran needed to be excised.

Dragging him down that far would be a chore, though. Or, if she threw him into the water from an elevated position he’d either die quickly on impact or she’d risk him surviving long enough to swim out and escape. Despite Mara’s preference for death via irony, she refused to let it impact her ultimate effectiveness.

With so many worlds under the Emperor’s rule, it was impossible for Mara to be equipped for missions to every single one, particularly in regards to local fashion. To that end, upon adopting a pleasant facial expression, she set out to the nearest shopping center to pick up some new clothes, finding a small used-clothing store without security cameras. With her credits, holdout weapons, and other equipment on her person, landing fees paid for two weeks in advance, she intended not to return to her ship until this mission was completed. Being seen entering and leaving the ship would make her too obviously an outsider to anyone watching, and Mara knew that in an area this tightly under imperial control, many people would be.

Now, Mara would prepare, investigate, and if the Force was with her, anticipate Fulcrum's appearance. There were stun cuffs, tranquilizers useable for multiple species, and so many other useful pieces of equipment she’d brought specially for this occasion. Retrieving building schematics of the imperial headquarters, Mara considered where and how Fulcrum would arrive.

Time to get to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something I wanted to be sure to get in this story is that despite all the bullshit they've been through, Ahsoka and Barriss love each other. In all the horror spreading throughout the galaxy, they have each other, this one person they can put trust in and feel safe with amidst war, pain, manipulation, and fear. That's why I've put this insane amount of effort into writing these stories, because if Star Wars won't give that to me by choice, then I have to cut the franchise open and pry what I want out of its guts.
> 
> Can't even get any information on where Barriss is. Since she was taken away, she's appeared in one average comic and one terrible comic that spelled her name "Bariss". Maybe that wasn't the real Barriss, and it's a Bigger Luke situation. Barriss never really framed Ahsoka, that was Bariss Offee's handiwork. Maybe Bariss was the one that got killed on Felucia.


	6. A Fun Night Out

“Isn’t doing this with a patient against some kind of medical ethics?” Ahsoka teasingly asked as her hand pressed into the skin of Barriss’s back, pulling her closer with the latter’s delightfully fuzzy legs pressed against her own.

“You say that as though I have any form of professional credibility I need to maintain,” Barriss replied, pressing her head against Ahsoka’s lekku and neck.

“Well, I am feeling a _lot_ better now,” said Ahsoka, chuckling slightly as the two relaxed.

Running her fingers through Barriss’s hair, Ahsoka twisted a silky lock of hair around her finger and got Barriss to smile enough to light up the room, holding her close as they drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Crackling violet lightning poured from the peak of the Malachor Temple, its superweapon readying itself to fire a petrifying wave as Ahsoka faced her former master, his black cape billowing in the air currents.

“I won’t leave you,” Ahsoka said. “Not this time.”

“Then you will die,” Vader replied, igniting his saber and approaching.

Lightsabers ready, Ahsoka tried to think of something to say, some way of getting through to him, through the darkness and manipulation Palpatine had woven in over the years.

“Anakin, your daughter is alive, and I know where she is!” Ahsoka blurted out.

Vader stopped a few paces away, close enough for Ahsoka to clearly see the astonished expression in the exposed portion of his face, golden eyes going wide. After a moment, he lowered his weapon, but did not deactivate it.

“Where is she?” he said, voice low, restraining his rage.

“I won’t tell you. Not unless you stand down, and come with me,” Ahsoka replied, hearing the uncertainty in her voice as she tried to negotiate. “Please, Anakin, it doesn’t have to end like this. Come with me.”

“Do _not_ dictate terms to me,” Vader replied harshly, taking another step and raising his left hand towards Ahsoka. “ _Tell me where my daughter is_.”

“No! Not unless you- you-” Ahsoka tried to fight off the constricting power that concentrated on her neck, finding her effort futile.

“TELL. ME. WHERE,” Vader commanded as Ahsoka felt her throat being crushed, a pain which quickly became secondary to her being lifted by the head and rising up into the path of the Malachor superweapon, helplessly struggling mid-air until she was moved feet-first into the weapon’s path.

The petrification process was far slower and more painful than she’d imagined, feeling the Force ripped from her cell by cell, consuming more of her flesh as Vader tortured her by slowly immersing her in the weapon’s beam. Meeting his gaze on last time, Ahsoka refused to tell him what he wanted to know before Malachor completely consumed her.

* * *

Stirring under the covers after a restful night of sleep, Barriss smiled, opened her eyes, and saw Ahsoka had opened the window’s curtains, staring into hyperspace with an exhausted look.

“Did you sleep well?” Barriss asked, hoping the answer wasn’t the obvious ‘no’ she was expecting.

“I’d rather not talk about it,” Ahsoka said wearily.

Taking a long breath, Barriss treaded carefully.

“Ahsoka, I speak from experience that at no point during any of our interactions have I thought ‘I am glad I didn’t open up to her’,” said Barriss.

“...Neither have I,” Ahsoka admitted, turning to look at Barriss in the bright blue light. “I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to help Anakin, Barriss. On Malachor, even when I thought I was reaching him, when there was nothing stopping him from coming with me if that was what he wanted, he tried to kill me. He would’ve killed me, just as certainly as I would’ve killed him if I could.”

“As I told you before, I will help you. Whatever you're planning, whatever you need,” Barriss said as she reached over and took Ahsoka’s hand. “That said, I don’t want you to risk harm to yourself on Skywalker’s behalf.”

“I’m rethinking my little plan to try reasoning with him again. If he’s able to catch me, there are a lot more people who will suffer,” Ahsoka said. “It’s sweet of you, Barriss, but you don’t need to worry about me.”

“That isn't my only concern- How can I not worry about you?” asked Barriss. “I found you half-dead with a variety of dangerous afflictions, as your mind was being destroyed within a nexus of the dark side buried beneath a Sith superweapon.”

“You’re still not over that?” Ahsoka said dismissively.

“Still not- It was _four days ago_!” Barriss yelled in exasperation. This whole exchange was confusing for Barriss, as Ahsoka sought reassurance while ignoring concern for her wellbeing. “After the brain worm incident, Luminara allotted me a full week of rest. You’re treating yourself more carelessly than Luminara treated me when I was a child. Think on that, Ahsoka. _Think on it_.”

“Barriss, I... I’d like to be alone right now,” Ahsoka said.

Barriss looked worried for a moment before replying, “Okay. If that changes, you can find me in the cockpit.”

After getting dressed and stepping out of their quarters, past the ysalamiri which she’d put outside for the night, Barriss went to check up on their course.

 _Ahsoka’s having her first backslide,_ Barriss thought, nodding to herself as she sat alone in the cockpit. _Nothing to be overly concerned by. It happens._

Mentally cycling through the various traumatic events in her life searching for something comparable she could use to help, Barriss came up empty, as she had never wanted to kill Luminara. She’d seriously considered killing her master, and had multiple ways of doing so, but never _wanted_ to. There were a great number of awful things Barriss had done or thought about doing at some point or another even though she didn’t want to.

Though Barriss supposed, if they were being exact, Ahsoka told her she’d wanted to kill Anakin Skywalker, and Barriss had absolutely wanted to kill _him_. In fact, now those emotions were resurfacing.

This was a thought she would keep to herself.

As much disdain as she felt for Skywalker, Barriss had never anticipated Ahsoka would develop an even more tragically complex relationship with him than Barriss had with Luminara.

Taking a deep breath, Barriss decided to let Ahsoka work through her feelings alone, if that was what she wanted. There were other things for Barriss to occupy herself with. There was always some new calamity happening.

In the tumultuous age of the Empire, Barriss kept a close eye on who was presently running things, on who was killing whom in the course of political infighting. Another method of weakening the Empire was by exploiting this infighting, encouraging the paranoia of its upper class, keeping them in competition with each other and have them hoard imperial resources for their protection. It helped her consider next steps in weakening imperial governance, though it came with the side effect of aggravating her at how little attention seemed dedicated to assassinating Palpatine. No one in the imperial government seemed to be thinking _big._

Then came the first worrying news of the day: Governor Prodric, one of her informants, had been assassinated. If this was an attempt by an underling to remove an obstacle for advancement, that was one thing, but reports claimed the murder had been performed with a lightsaber, with the suggestion that a Jedi was responsible. This kind of behavior didn’t seem Skywalker’s style, he would’ve made it clear who was responsible, and Barriss wasn't aware of any other survivor active in that system.

Despite the loss of a good informant, Barriss was adaptable, and quickly set to work thinking how this could be used to their advantage.

* * *

Contact Darth Vader. That was an idea Ahsoka had been seriously considering, after he’d nearly killed her.

_What was I thinking?_

_Yes, let me just call him up on the comm. ‘Hi Anakin! How are you? Killed any children lately?’_

Grim as that thought was on her own, Ahsoka suddenly realized something. That thought referred to the children of the galaxy in general and the Sand People children Anakin killed in particular, Ahsoka having discovered what happened during a visit to Tatooine years ago.

Piecing that together with new information, she knew Anakin must have killed Jedi children. Many of them. Only days ago, she’d witnessed Vader raising his saber as he prepared to kill Ezra, without any sign of remorse or hesitation.

 _Do you expect the galaxy would have been saved if only you’d given him a hug goodbye?_ Ahsoka bitterly thought to herself as she recalled the last thing she’d said to Anakin Skywalker.

_‘Good luck.’_

Those were her last words to him before he went to rescue the man who would command him to destroy the Jedi.

_Maybe a hug would’ve been warranted._

Ahsoka buried her face in her hands as she sat on the side of the bed. It all kept getting worse. No matter how much she thought about the situation, trying to think of a way to make things right, all she found were new, horrible realities.

 _What was it, Anakin?_ Ahsoka wondered. _What was it that convinced you to make that choice?_

Who knew what other horrible things he was responsible for?

Sitting on the bed, Ahsoka stared out the rounded rectangular window of the cabin, lost in the light of hyperspace until they finally reached their destination. Against the starry blackness outside, her eyes tended to focus on her reflection, seeing the tear streaks and puffy eyes. Eventually she moved herself over to the side of the window, staring out at an angle to avoid her reflection as the _Eclipse_ descended onto Moseprous.

* * *

The _Rogue Shadow_ slowly descended down towards Clost, a hundred kilometers from the rebel landing site. If Galen took it down too fast or too close, the heat generated by atmospheric entry would trip the rebels’ sensors, cloaking device or not. Approaching low over the ground, ducking through a canyon, Galen found an overhang for the ship a kilometer from his target where it could sit unnoticed.

 _Should I go with the stealth suit?_ Galen wondered as he opened up his wardrobe, displaying various outfits he’d stolen, patched up, and modified to serve him in a variety of environments and roles. _Or maybe a rebel disguise?_

Going in with a disguise probably wouldn’t work, not in one of these tight-knit groups. There were so many different cells too, with their own suppliers of armor and uniforms, the one he’d stolen probably wouldn’t even blend in well.

 _Stealth suit it is,_ he reasoned, grabbing a dark blue, form-fitting suit equipped with a light helmet and a sound-dampening unit. The sound-dampener was a weak form of force field which blocked vibrations through the air, combined with headphones in the helmet which in turn amplified incoming sound so the wearer wasn’t rendered deaf. Galen exited his ship, and started walking through the night.

The two corvettes were arranged in a line, that light freighter the _Ghost_ , and five A-Wing fighters were landed nearby, pilots and crew assisting in distributing whatever supplies they’d taken.

 _Lead ship, which one would be the lead ship..._ Galen wondered, trying to determine which vessel was most likely to hold the encryption key in its computers. Presumably, it was the blockade runner at the front, though it wasn’t the only vessel of interest.

There was something grim lurking in the _Ghost_. A presence, malicious and corrupting, beckoning with power and rage, the knowledge of the dark side beckoning weaker wills to their destruction.

Ordinarily, that kind of thing drew Galen’s interest and he was surprised to sense such a presence among rebels, and he’d love to go check it out, but didn’t have time to investigate. Instead, he sprinted through the darkness and lept onto the top of the corvette.

Creeping along the hull, Galen got to the portside airlock, and with the Force, engaged its internal unlocking mechanism from the outside and let himself in. The dark color of his suit was perfect for the night, less so for the completely white interior of a CR90, requiring him to slowly and carefully move through the halls, sensing the thoughts and movements of the minds around him. It’d been a while since he’d done pure infiltration work, getting in and out without being seen by anyone. Galen wasn’t as small as he used to be, he couldn’t sneak around and Force-choke people from air vents anymore. Couching like this was hurting his knees.

“I feel like one of us should stay at Chopper Base until Kanan is back on his feet,” said the Mandalorian, Sabine Wren, as she exited the dining room while Galen was hidden around the corner.

“Hera needed all hands for this one,” replied Zeb, the enormous, gruff Lasat. “Kanan’s been through worse than this, and he’s come out okay.”

As they kept walking forward, Galen kept a few meters behind them, sneaking forward from nook to nook. What they were saying reinforced the idea that this infiltration had been the smart move. Kanan Jarrus wasn’t even here to be captured, he was recovering from some injury back at the rebels’ base.

“He was _blinded_ , Zeb. What’s he dealt with that’s worse?”

“What the Empire did to the Jedi, that’s what,” Zeb replied solemnly as they moved on towards the bridge. “Everything he cared about, all the people he knew, whole culture torn away. If he can get through that, he can survive anything.”

Ducking into the computer room as the rebels walked off, Galen got to a terminal and discovered it was unsurprisingly password protected. The Force could do a lot of things, it couldn’t break computer security. Inserting a computer spike into one of the drive ports, Galen patiently waited as the device cracked the security, as the young Sith apprentice didn’t have much understand of how such things worked. That patience was rewarded when the login screen disappeared, allowing him access to the stored files.

Completely convinced this had been the right move after all, Galen expected some calamity to strike as the communication system’s encryption keys downloaded onto the data drive he’d brought. A minute later, the encryption key was in his hand, that was all he’d come for, now it was time to get out of here. If Lord Vader wished it, Galen could always track these rebels down again and kill them all later.

Leaving the computer room, Galen retraced his path through the ship, once again on guard. Ascending reaching the airlock, something changed, the ship wasn’t as quiet as it was a moment ago, he could sense the activity as the crew were becoming alert and getting to their stations.

They were prepping the ship for takeoff.

Galen scrambled to get out before he got trapped on this ship in hyperspace, getting delayed a moment as this run-down rebel piece of junk’s airlock malfunctioned and wouldn't open, requiring Galen push it open with the Force. Passing through the airlock, Galen was thrown off and hit the ground hard as the corvette lifted off. The roar of the ship was deafening, the ion engines and the slipstream kicked up sand and dirt of the landing area, covering Galen. Times like this, he was really glad he wore a helmet.

Lying in the dirt, holding the drive safely in his hand above the hard ground to ensure it didn't get crushed, Galen took a moment to watch Phoenix Squadron ascend up and away, belatedly realizing he _really_ should’ve placed a tracking device aboard so he could find them again if necessary.

 _DOESN’T MATTER NOW, I’ve got the encryption key, everything will be FINE,_ he consoled himself as he found the strength to get back up, walking off the pain of the fall and making his way back to the ship.

* * *

Rather than utilize any of Moseprous’s publicly available landing pads, Ahsoka and Barriss preferred an alternative hideout, taking the _Eclipse_ down into some antiquated transportation infrastructure below the city. These tunnels had been built into some natural caves five thousand years earlier when this region had been dry, and useful for mining and underground hydroponics. Some intense seismic activity over many centuries formed the current geological structure of Sevuria, cracking the landscape into its current form and flooding the underground passages as residents built into the cliffs above.

There were few spaces available which were stable enough for the _Eclipse_ to land, and in fact hiding out in this place for an extended period was impossible due to additional flooding the seasonal rains would bring in a few month’s time, which would drown anyone foolish enough to use this place for anything, hence why the place wasn’t closely monitored. For a few days, it would be suitable, and the _Eclipse’s_ landing lights diffused through an underground lake as the ship deployed its landing gear and settled onto a sheet of stone. Patches of bioluminescent algae along the walls and under the water dimly lit the environment with shades of blue and green while the sounds of dripping, flowing water echoed through the caverns, eroding what little remained of the ancient artificial structures.

To help Ahsoka ease back into her duties as a major player in the Rebellion’s leadership, and give her a break from thinking about the horrific state of her former master, Barriss knew exactly the kind of diversion she needed: a romantic night of anti-authoritarian industrial sabotage. Just them, the clear night sky with all its stars, and a shipment of AT-AT power generators due to be shipped offworld to the assembly facilities at Lomiut. Like so many things, rebellion against the government was so much better when you did it with someone you loved. Barriss put off infiltrating the senator’s residence for a day, as that could wait, the generators were due to leave.

This was another operation their ability to use the Force made Ahsoka and Barriss uniquely suited for. An explosive any other rebel agent could attack with would make the generators inoperable. So would a slice across the exterior with a lightsaber. Use of either method would damage the generators in obvious ways, and would be noticeable enough that they’d only destroy a few pieces of equipment before being noticed and alarms were triggered.

The generators contained safeguards which normally could not be accessed without disassembling half the machine. Using the Force, Ahsoka or Barriss could disable it telekinetically from outside, and do so without being noticed. All they needed to do was disconnect the sensor which communicated with the cooling system, telling it when the generator was at risk of overheating. The generators were being prepared for shipment, already passed multiple inspections, and were set to be built into new AT-ATs. The generators would work adequately, until breakdowns began occurring from their systems melting down.

Further, this was a factory with adamantly pro-imperial management, not a locally coordinated sabotage mission, and could potentially compound the seditious framing of Senator Drescran. Then, if they used this same method on another shipment from another planet, the Empire would realize this was not limited to a single system and be forced to spend additional time checking and rechecking the failsafes, after many more AT-ATs lost primary power generation.

“You are a genius,” Ahsoka admiringly told Barriss before planting a kiss on her cheek, getting the latter to smile, exactly as she’d done when previously briefed on the plan weeks ago.

“The Empire values its property more than the lives of its citizens. To weaken it, we should act accordingly,” Barriss replied as the two suited up for the mission, wearing sound-dampening suits and covering their faces. Ahsoka in particular needed to wear a dark, flexible head covering her lekku could fit into, which also exposed the tips of her montrals to keep her echolocation working. White stripes did not make good night camouflage.

Ascending up through the tunnels and over the cliffside city on their rugged two-seater Sabre 520 swoop bike, the Fulcra soon located their target. The shipment itself was located atop one of the plateaus forming Sevuria, being loaded into a bulk freighter which would move them out of the system. The freighter was a metal box with an engine being filled with cargo containers, a loading process which gave the rebels a clear indication of how much time they had to work before this ship would take off.

There were no workers inside the cargo bay itself, all the loading being done by cranes controlled from a room at the aft portion of the bay, providing the crane operators a clear view of the metal containers and no view of Ahsoka and Barriss as they hid behind said containers. Reaching out with the Force, sensing the internal mechanisms, they broke the generator internal sensors one by one, each damaged machine inevitably leading to a failed AT-AT, a feat which would normally require a small army with heavy artillery.

The more containers were loaded in, the more cover Ahsoka and Barriss had to hide behind as they leapt upwards to reach the next layer of the stacks, eventually deciding they were out of time and retreating.

Sixty-two generators sabotaged. Only temporary damage to tiny fraction of imperial mechanized infantry, but a good night’s work. They didn’t disable every single one, slightly over half, enough that when the problem was discovered and traced back to Moseprous, every generator would have to be taken apart, checked, and put back together, if not discarded entirely, including those which weren’t tampered with.

With Barriss’s arms wrapped around Ahsoka while the latter controlled the swoop bike, the two leaned into each other as they hovered over one of Moseprous’s chasms, watching the freighter lift off to deliver its broken cargo to the imperial army.

* * *

Senator Drescran’s residence was positioned on the plateau immediately above the imperial headquarters built into the cliffside, appropriately luxurious for a supposed servant of the Empire. Mara had seen many like it across the galaxy. It was also the most likely place any evidence of treason against the Empire would be held. It was possible the capital's imperial command center would show her whatever Drescran was up to, if he was careless enough to leave evidence in such a publicly accessible building. Other targets of hers had done so, but she’d found it more efficient to start by searching their personal residences. Places where they felt safe and secure, feelings Mara could take advantage of and use against them before their sentencing.

_Thus die all traitors._

Mara took a moment to remind herself Drescran wasn’t the primary target, Fulcrum was. Technically, she couldn’t be entirely certain he was allied with the Rebellion at all, or if he was inclined to, or if he was being targeted by them for other reasons. All she knew was that he was on their sensors, and that made him useful to her.

There were multiple options available to her, though she had something perfect for this operation: AL-21 surveillance droids. Clever little things, far more advanced than most security would be prepared to deal with. Small enough to fit on the tip of your finger, and rather than stationary listening devices or cameras, the droids were smart and complex enough to move on their own between concealed locations and spots where they could watch and avoid security sweeps in the process. They could also be remotely controlled, furthering their ability to avoid detection by being manually directed out of the way.

They weren’t very fast, though, not fast enough to get across hundreds of meters of the estate without being spotted or detected by what were undoubtedly concealed scanners. A cluster of the spidery little droids swarmed over Mara’s bare forearm as she proudly observed them, ready to set them to work. What she needed was a convenient means of spreading them throughout the entire estate, getting them into the walls without security detecting them.

Snapping her fingers when an idea struck her, Mara checked the city’s infrastructure. Many scanners were capable of detecting droids as small as the AL-21s, but were expecting something larger, and would be directed at locations which something larger may approach. There had to be some small crack they could be slipped into.

Then she found something, power cables connected up to the city’s grid, winding through the stone cliffside up into the estate, leaving only a few square centimeters of gap space.

The droids moved in according to a ‘follow’ mode, with one droid under Mara’s remote control guiding the others as they moved single-file up from the foundation and into the estate’s walls. With her surveillance devices’ autonomy enabled and moving them into place, Mara departed back to the cheapest, most unremarkable apartment she'd found within range of her electronics’ signals. The living conditions for the majority of Moseprous were disgusting, and it reminded Mara of so many other worlds where the planetary governments embezzled or otherwise siphoned huge sums of credits intended to strengthen the Empire, which inclined her to thinking the senator was working against the stability the Emperor provided.

And there he was, the good senator Fulcrum had taken an interest in, an elderly man with greying brown hair, stepping into her video feed and allowing Mara to track his movements room to room. There were the imperial senate guards the Emperor assigned, following along, standing dutifully in the blue version of his royal guards’ uniform.

Despite the expectations and buildup, Mara found Drescran to be... disappointing, as a potential adversary. Not much to talk about, really. Wealthy, elderly career politician who’d been a senator since long before the Clone Wars. He wasn’t even doing very much at the moment, only eating dinner with his family, including a wife that was far too young for him, two kids who looked older than his wife, and four grandkids. Or maybe those were also Drescran’s children. Taking a look at her files, Mara was revolted to discover it was a mix of both.

Listening to their conversations, the family discussed the most mundane topics. Like drape color. Or steak texture. And that was when they talked at all. She felt bad for the senate guards. There were these two loyal soldiers, the pride of the Empire, tasked with protecting his life, being forced to listen to this prattle every single day.

Maybe the guards were people she knew. The royal guards were universally professional at all times, and Mara was always focused on reporting to the Emperor whenever she encountered them, but she’d interacted with them enough to build a good rapport, and after ten minutes of this she was honestly hoping she’d uncover a reason to kill Drescran so they could be assigned somewhere their skills wouldn't go to waste.

This was rather boring. Getting bored wasn’t unusual, Mara couldn’t spend _every_ day casting judgement on traitors in the name of the Emperor. Whatever Drescran was planning, if anything, would probably occur whenever he went to his study to work, so Mara set her portable computer terminal to record while she got up to make some caf. This was going to take some time.

* * *

It was only when in the _Rogue_ _Shadow’s_ pilot seat that Galen came anywhere close to relaxed, his foot tapping the floor rapidly as he waited for the decryption to work on the recording.

 _Please work..._ he thought at the loading bar gradually filled up, and then the holoprojector displayed images of Captain Hera Syndulla and a mysterious hooded figure. Galen loudly exclaimed “YES!” before leaning forward to listen, taking in a report of rebel activities, Captain Syndulla explaining their situation.

“Meanwhile Kanan can’t offer much support, since he’s recovering from being blinded. At least Maul got rid of three inquisitors before he fled.”

 _Oh,_ Maul _is the one who killed the inquisitors and took that third TIE fighter off of Malachor,_ Galen thought, glad to finally have that question answered, the exact happenings of the rebels’ mission to the Sith Temple still not entirely clear to him.

_...I thought Maul was dead._

In response to the question of Ahsoka Tano’s death, the Fulcrum recording continued, “You can rest assured the events on Malachor will not significantly affect the conflict with the Empire.”

That was the kind of precisely worded non-lie Galen would expect from a Jedi. Ahsoka was alive, and if it wasn’t for the fact this hologram was very obviously not a Togruta, he’d believe she was falsely reporting her own death. Unless she’d set up some kind of motion-capturing equipment to make the more humanlike hologram follow her movements, but that seemed like a convoluted explanation. If she was that concerned about her identity, she could forgo the hologram entirely. It was obviously a living person, moving and reacting to what was being said.

Staring at the hooded hologram for another moment, Galen had a spark of realization, checking the data files for a few images to compare. Though skull shape wasn’t a precise means of identification, he could make a plausible deduction taking into account the thin build under the mantle, and the voice’s feminine pitch even with the filtering.

The hologram was Barriss Offee, not Ahsoka. She was covering up Ahsoka’s ‘death’. She was the one who’d brought her from Malachor. They were still working together after all these years. Smart, strategically, the two Jedi survivors sticking together to endure the Empire’s reign.

Listening to the remainder of the message, Galen could make some deductions. Ahsoka Tano was maintaining the illusion of her death, even from rebel allies. Galen didn’t feel as stupid for not leaving a tracker any more, pursuing Phoenix Squadron further was useless and they weren’t relevant to his current assignment. Since Ahsoka was ignoring her allies despite the physical and emotional pain they were suffering on her account, even threatening them directly probably wasn’t useful.

A thought struck Galen: he couldn’t be _entirely_ certain that Ahsoka wasn’t truly dead anymore. Yes, he hadn’t found her, and yes, all signs pointed to Barriss arriving on Malachor with their ship to mount a rescue. What if Barriss only found and recovered Ahsoka’s body?

It didn’t matter. Whether Ahsoka died on Malachor or not, Galen would pursue this lead until he had a definitive answer.

Lord Vader couldn’t possibly be angry at Galen for not completing the mission if Ahsoka was already dead. Could he?

There was only one lead he could glean from that conversation, that new funding had been sent from an imperial senator ‘Drescran’, the one from Moseprous, according to Galen’s databanks. Phoenix Squadron all thought Ahsoka was dead, they had no idea where she was, and he was no longer certain of where they were, either. Either Ahsoka was on Moseprous, or someone who worked for Ahsoka was on Moseprous. If there were more Fulcrum transmissions from the planet, he now had decryption keys for them.

 _I guess I have a new destination,_ he thought, punching the coordinates into the navcomputer.

Then, an _Arquitens_ -class cruiser dropped out of hyperspace in front of the _Shadow_. It seemed Galen wasn’t the only one who’d figured out where the rebels would flee to. Took the navy too long to accomplish anything, as usual.

“Rebel ship, we know you’re out there,” the voice of the ship’s commander came over the comm, as the _Shadow_ was now close enough to easily see with the naked eye, despite its sensor cloaking. “We have you in a tractor beam, now power down your shields and you won’t be harmed.”

 _Oh, COME ON!_ Galen thought as four TIE fighters circled around him, green energy bolts pelting the ship a few times as the _Shadow’s_ engines struggled against the tractor beam.

As the ship shuddered around him, Galen was officially at the end of his patience. The trail to Moseprous was a thin lead as it was, and he wasn’t going to tolerate any more wastes of time.

Reaching out with the Force, Galen could sense the intentions of the incoming TIE pilot with the weakest mind, immersing himself in the rage he felt as he reached out with the dark side. With a hand extended toward the ship, Galen overwhelmed the pilot’s thoughts with determination fueled by anger, Galen took control and directed the TIE to crash into the tractor beam projector, consuming both in the explosion and allowing the _Rogue Shadow_ to freely move.

The ship was rocked again as two more fighters opened fire. Reaching one hand out to each ship, visualizing them in his grasp, Galen again took control of their pilots and directed the TIEs to slam into each other. The fourth and last fighter, he directed towards the cruiser’s bridge, impacting explosively and uselessly against the cruiser’s shields, not doubt terrifying the officers.

With no other ships blocking the path, the _Rogue Shadow_ jumped into hyperspace, moving onto larger prey as Galen concentrated on his anger, feeling he was going to need it.


	7. Crossing Paths

In her years of service to the Rebellion, Barriss fulfilled many functions. Infiltrator, spy, saboteur, analyst, strategist, thief, pilot, organizer, recruiter.

By far, her favorite role was acting as Ahsoka’s pillow.

Barriss was seated on the upper half of their bed, lightly humming and reading stolen documents on next-generation TIE fighter design, back against the wall with her feet sticking out from the edge with Ahsoka’s head laid in her lap. Given how heavy that head was with the bulbous lekku, Barriss sometimes worried how Ahsoka’s neck was able to support it all, aware elderly Togruta frequently developed various ailments causing neck pain.

There was another brainstorming session coming on, and Barriss wanted to review counterintelligence reports to formulate the next stage of their plans. Where to put the Rebellion’s resources into, sending agents to investigate rumors of underground resistance cells to recruit into the greater alliance, and countering the Empire’s propaganda machine.

One weakness of the Empire’s political structure was inadequate education systems. Palpatine needed people to fulfill the roles of government, but didn’t seem concerned with how such people would be trained for that purpose, and relying on only those who could afford private education left an inadequate supply of qualified officials. That left a supply concern for how to keep the governments functioning. Authoritarian as Palpatine’s regime was, he required people with the intelligence and skills to execute his commands. Cut off his supply, and it became easier for rebels to act.

“We should focus more on preventing the Empire from recruiting people, or make it impossible to train them properly,” Ahsoka said sleepily as she and Barriss brainstormed new strategies to weaken the Empire. “Demolish their training infrastructure, and they can’t field more stormtroopers.”

“Imperial academies are well-protected, and attacking students would provide the Empire useful propaganda material of violent rebels attacking bright young patriots.”

“Well, we could send in moles to destroy training centers, slice into computer cores and completely delete records of student performance, try to recruit instructors to spread subversive ideas,” Ahsoka said as Barriss typed up notes and considered where a good place to begin would be.

Checking the time, Barriss saw it was entering the evening hours, now time for her to get moving. Imperial officials weren’t going to implicate themselves in treason. Well, they often would, but Barriss wanted them to do so on her terms in accordance with her stratagems.

“Ahsoka?” Barriss softly spoke, nudging her partner to get up.

“Yep?” Ahsoka mumbled, eyes close and quite comfortable.

“Ahsoka, I need to go plant false evidence implicating a prominent senator in treason,” Barriss said cheerfully, getting Ahsoka to fully wake up and move her head.

“Don’t let me keep you,” Ahsoka said, stretching her arms, then getting her boots on and leading Barriss out to the cargo hold. “Sure you don’t need my help?” Ahsoka asked, concerned as ever when they split up.

“Appreciated, but this is a solo operation. I want to scout out the area first, make sure there’s nothing unusual happening,” Barriss said, loading up the swoop bike hovering in the cargo hold with equipment before donning a hooded cloak and walking it down the boarding ramp.

Ahsoka held out a hand, which Barriss firmly took for a moment. “Good luck.”

“Thank you,” Barriss said, letting go and mounting her bike and speeding off through the luminescent tunnels beneath Sevuria.

Leaving a transponder at the cave exit to maintain contact with Ahsoka, comm signals not easily penetrating so deep underground, Barriss took the swoop up, ascending through the city built among the craggy rocks, becoming unnoticeable when surrounded by airspeeders, ascending starships, and other swoop bikes crossing the chasms spread through the city.

Being out on her own like this made Barriss worry she didn’t do so frequently enough, always sheltering herself in the _Eclipse_ developing some new plot. When she went out, whether for recreation or a mission, she was usually working closely with Ahsoka, who then drew Barriss’s undivided attention. It was good to be alone, from time to time.

Upon reaching one of the city’s plateaus, Barriss stopped her swoop bike, looking over the edge at a city broken apart with the landscape, the faint sound of rushing water at the bottom audible even at this height. Moments like this were precious to Barriss, and she made certain to take time to feel the Force on every world she visited. Some perspective and awareness of whom she was fighting for. Trying to prevent more lives from being lost to the Empire.

Reaching out into the Force, Barriss could feel the lives entangled in her actions, could see the interconnections in imperial politics extending from this city out into the wider galaxy, imagine the consequences of this small plot to spread paranoia cascading outward through the universe. It didn’t seem important now, and it frustrated her how little effect she often seemed to be having, but she knew that all these plans of hers were weakening the Empire until, someday, it would collapse. The anticipation of that day provided her patience to help her wait for it, and infinite determination to bring it nearer.

* * *

The _Rogue Shadow’s_ rectangular training room occupied much of the ship’s starboard side, built with heavily reinforced walls to endure any amount of power Galen let loose with and not cause an explosive decompression.

“Nice parry, master!” Proxy-Ahsoka said encouragingly as she held out her hands, levitating training blocks using miniaturized tractor beams and throwing them at Galen. Dodging the projectiles, Galen redirected their path around him and sent them back, disrupting the holograms around Proxy on impact, enough for the droid to count it as a fatal blow. This was progress, though still not enough for him to feel confident in success. Ahsoka was a serious enough threat on her own, but now Galen was all but certain Barriss Offee would be with her. Initially, Galen hadn’t considered her involvement a serious issue.

Then he’d started reading reports.

After successfully bombing the Jedi’s own hangar, an impressive feat on its own, she was imprisoned, freed by Ahsoka after the Jedi Purge, going on to oppose the Empire’s expansion. Nothing too unusual compared to other Jedi survivors, until Galen read how she’d razed the surface of Ilum with a chain reaction of exploding kyber crystals, cutting through the Inquisitorius with ease and laying waste to the Empire’s operation across the planet. Ahsoka was his target, but Barriss was the enemy Galen was now most concerned by.

Unfortunately, Proxy wasn’t able to put together as detailed a training module for her. The files Lord Vader provided for Ahsoka contained comprehensive information on her preferred lightsaber styles, moves, and certain Force powers. Galen’s master even knew Ahsoka’s reaction time, everything Proxy needed to make a module. Such information was not available for Barriss, and Galen was going in with comparatively vague details.

With the sudden, erratic shudder of the ship, Galen realized they’d reached their destination and exited hyperspace, and called the training session over. Galen had pushed the _Rogue Shadow’s_ hyperdrive to dangerous extremes trying to get to Moseprous faster, not wanting to repeat his late arrival on Malachor.

Choosing to start his search with the planetary capital, Galen took the _Shadow_ down without its stygium cloaking device active. Ordinarily he disliked being detected at all, but a plainly visible ship cruising through the air without registering on anyone’s sensors would draw more attention than the vessel’s appearance as a mundane cargo ship.

The _Shadow_ did some flybys, and didn’t found Ahsoka’s ship in any of the spaceports. There had been two other G-Classes in the city, but upon closer examination they were owned by legitimate merchants, not the Jedi.

Without any new leads to follow when scanning from the air, Galen took the ship down to explore on foot, aiming to learn more about this unfamiliar planet. The sun was setting now, shadows cast onto the structures built along the cliff walls as city blocks on the plateaus above enjoyed longer periods of natural light. Galen descended the vertical layout deeper into the city, down hundreds upon hundreds of metal stairs bolts into the rock, eventually reaching the lowest level.

Among the locals, the aspiring Sith stood out noticeably, obviously being an offworlder because of how he checked every public map he spotted, not helped by his primarily black wardrobe. Wearing black full-body armor in the middle of public spaces, battle damage clearly visible on it, the resting expression of his face being a mild frown, people tended to avoid him.

Finding a quiet spot near the calm water’s edge, Galen closed his eyes and listened to the Force, hoping it could guide him to his goal.

“Master, I have brought you food,” Proxy interrupted, holding out a take-out box from some local restaurant. “It has been 9.6 hours since you last ate. You must be hungry.”

“Thanks, Proxy,” said Galen, nearly taking the food before hesitating and staring at it. “You poisoned it, didn’t you?”

“No master, no poison at all! I exhausted my supply weeks ago and have not restocked,” Proxy replied truthfully.

Tilting his head, Galen saw the disposable container had been opened from the side. “Did you put a bomb inside it?”

Proxy stared at him for a moment, his motionless yellow photoreceptors even more motionless than usual, before his shoulders slumped in defeat. “Oh, master, you are too clever for me...” he said before disappointedly chucking the box of food to his left and into the water. There it sank down, and down, for several seconds before the eventual explosion broke the surface in a spray of foam.

The blast didn’t even make Galen flinch, as this was the fifth time Proxy had tried something like that and his continued hunger was more of a concern. Whatever that food was, it smelled _really_ good before it exploded.

 _When you’ve made some progress, then you can eat,_ Galen told himself as he straightened himself out and returned to the spaceport, righly feeling like he'd accomplished nothing.

There had to be somewhere nearby that contained a space large enough to store a G-Class Light freighter. That ship was key, as Ahsoka had been using it for years, so it wasn’t simply a convenient means of transport, it was very much _her_ ship.

Ahsoka’s freighter wasn’t in any of the public spaceports, and it wasn’t easy to hide a ship that big. Assuming Ahsoka was actually here. If she wasn’t, then the backup plan was to kidnap Senator Descran and tear any information about Fulcrum from his mind until Galen found a new lead.

Walking around the landing pad the _Rogue Shadow_ was sitting on, Galen decided to simply ask for help, locating an information kiosk for new arrivals to the planet. It wasn’t staffed at the moment, despite the sign despite the sign saying someone should be present at all times. Galen ignored the stares of passersby as he patiently waited for a minute before finally spotting the button to summon an attendant, a young woman with black hair, red skin and spiky eyebrow ridges, her exact species unknown to Galen.

“I apologize for the wait. How can I help you?” she asked with a pleasant smile.

“Hello, um, Delaray,” he began, reading the attendant’s nametag. “Does this spaceport keep records of incoming and departing ships or people?”

“We do, but... I can’t give that kind of information away to anyone who asks,” she said, becoming no less pleasant, if somewhat uneasy as it quickly became clear Galen wasn’t simply looking for directions. “What are you, some kind of bounty hunter?”

“Yes,” Galen bluntly replied. “I’m in pursuit of two criminals wanted by the Empire, a female Togruta and female Mirialan who travel in a G-Class freighter, each of them responsible for countless deaths, and I believe they're in this city. If they are here, I need to find them, if they’ve left, I need to know.

“I’m sorry... I can’t help you with that...” Delaray said, concerned and confused as to what exactly she was being involved in as she looked Galen up and down, probably wondering if he had any weapons and not recognizing his lightsaber.

“Do you know of any hidden areas large enough to contain a round ship roughly thirty meters in diameter?”

“Certain regions of ancient, underground tunnels are accessible to visitors, noted for their beautiful bioluminescent local flora. Others are deemed structurally unstable, or prone to flooding, and safety is our city’s foremost concern. Here’s a list of several locations that hold tours,” she said, mechanically reciting the advertisements for local tourist spots while keeping stressed, unbroken eye contact with the ‘bounty hunter’ in front of her. She quickly downloaded all relevant information and tunnel maps she could find onto a cheap data card and sliding it across the counter, quickly pulling her hands back.

“Thank you,” Galen said as he took the card, staring awkwardly at Delaray for a moment before putting fifty credits onto the counter for troubling her, then trudging back to the _Shadow_. The ship ascended up and began searching for a viable entrance to these tunnels wide enough for it to pass. The maps were useful, Galen figuring to avoid areas regularly visited as those were useless as hiding spots. The hypothetical hideout would need to not only be large enough to store the ship, it needed a structurally-stable platform to land on, and an easy means of exiting in a manner which wouldn’t draw attention.

Finding a wide enough opening at the limits of the city, Galen angled the ship down into the crevice, immersed in total darkness before the tunnels around him became covered in blue bioluminescent algae. If this didn’t work, he’d head over to Drescran and throttle information out of him. Maybe. Galen was running out of ideas.

There were only so many places to hide.

* * *

With Barriss out and about, Ahsoka was taking this time to get physical training in after being inactive for almost two weeks now, something very unusual for her. The underground hideout made a good practice battlefield, once she’d marked the slippery spots to avoid. There was the stone slab next to the underground pond the _Eclipse_ was resting on, as well as branching paths into the caves beyond, one of which connected into a roughly square cavern about twenty meters wide and five meters tall.

Leaping across stone pillars, Ahsoka dodged blaster shots from the droidekas, sensing their incoming trajectories before they even fired, either blocking, ducking, or sidestepping around them.

With her two white blades lighting up the cavern, Ahsoka jumped down to even ground and backed up as the droidekas closed in and spread out to surround her. From experience training with her, they knew point-blank distances gave her less time to react, and coming at her from multiple angles tested out her ability to deflect their fire.

As per the rules, whenever Ahsoka successfully deflected a bolt at the center of a droideka’s shields, they were out of the training exercise. To keep things somewhat fair, Ahsoka only fought three at a time, new ones lined up to join in once those before got hit.

Over the years of training, Ahsoka found the droidekas got increasingly clever, forcing her to adapt as well. Targeting her feet, or intentionally aiming off-center to make it harder to directly deflect bolts back at them.

There was a new modification she’d programmed into them, and unfortunately for her, she’d be the one it would be tested on. With a little addition of their firing control codes, the droidekas could fire all four of their blaster simultaneously, which slowed down their charging and caused intense recoil for one specific benefit Ahsoka suspected they would need. It didn’t matter how proficient a person’s skill with a lightsaber, they couldn’t deflect four bolts simultaneously when they weren’t arranged in a line. Ahsoka’s Jar’kai style wouldn’t have this problem, but the inquisitors, and their master, wouldn’t be so prepared.

With five droidekas down already, Ahsoka wasn’t going to make it easy for them, especially when her goal was to test out her physical skills after being injured. Leaping over Pin, Moogan, and Jitter fast enough they couldn’t hit her mid-air, Ahsoka landed hard and took cover behind some stalagmites, luring the droidekas towards unstable terrain. Once they were close enough, she levitated loose rocks up from beneath them, knocking Pin and Jitter over, which also counted as a knockout and prompting Glow and Kick to join in.

The remaining droidekas divided the work, Glow moving in with normal rapid-fire mode while Moogan and Kick shot all four blasters at once, all three of them strafing back and forth erratically as Ahsoka ducked and blocked. After a moment, they ceased fire, and Ahsoka didn’t grasp why until she looked down and saw her chest plate had a small scorch mark on it.

“Nice match, guys,” Ahsoka said as she caught her breath, sipping from her water bottle as she sat down on a rock for a break. These droids were getting too good for her, something she suspected she would be grateful for in the days ahead.

* * *

This infiltration was multi-layered, as Barriss wore both the uniform of the senator’s personal security retinue, as well as a holographic disguise matrix covering her face with that of one of the minor officers. Someone people would recognize and not ask anything of. Anyone who took a closer look at her could be deterred using the Force.

Now inside the manor, it was time to get to work placing a wedge between Drescran and Palpatine, first by convincing the senate guards that they were less welcome than it appeared and expecting them to report such to their Emperor. Being able to sense the presence of active minds nearby, Barriss timed her movements and took paths through the labyrinthine manor to avoid interacting with anyone.

Under the guise of being a security agent running a standard sweep, Barriss placed a hidden camera in the quarters of the guards. Then she put a small tracking device inside a spare set of armor. All things which the extensive training of the guards would allow them to easily identify. Even simply standing in their sparsely furnished quarters would be enough to tip them off, as guards of such caliber no doubt had some surveillance in place to let them know if anyone intruded. Upon reviewing security footage, they would see someone in the uniform of a security guard placing them.

Through her activities, there was an increasingly eerie feeling, one Barriss knew too well. The feeling of being watched. Not by the security forces she was pretending to be a part of, no, they were complacent in the uneventful day to day work. This was attentive, anticipating, covering the area no matter where Barriss moved.

Controlling her movements so as not to alert whoever was observing her that she was on to them, Barriss reached out with the Force, feeling for where this attention was coming from, not sensing anyone nearby. Walking around, she could sense something to her left, casually glancing to face it.

There was nothing but a wall.

A wall with a thin air vent at the top.

Turning away and taking another few steps forward, presumably out of view, Barriss paused and pulled out her scanner, discretely directing it to scan behind herself, and detected the presence of unknown circuitry.

Closing her eyes to concentrate on where the anomaly was located, Barriss held up her hand and a tiny surveillance droid came between her gloved fingers, pointed away until Barriss’s thumb covering up the front lens of its photoreceptor while insect-like legs writhed in her grip.

This couldn’t be standard security measures, otherwise she’d have felt the attention of nearby guards. Even now, she felt no warning of nearby danger.

Someone completely unconnected to this household already left hidden cameras.

This all worked quite well in Barriss’s favor. Keeping the micro-camera droid firmly in her grip as she studied it, she could see this was a high-quality piece of equipment. Imperial Intelligence technology, mobile enough to avoid standard security sweeps.

If, say, she put the camera in a place more easily located by the senator’s security, then it would appear he was being spied upon by his own government’s agents. Which by all indications was exactly what was happening, but now he would become aware of it.

Examining the droid, Barriss disconnected a microscopic wire supplying power to its legs, and considered where exactly to put the now-immobile device.

* * *

Mara relished using the power the Emperor had given her, the ability to command the Force as he did, guiding her to execute his will, to maintain this grand order throughout the galaxy. Today, things were moving along, she could feel it.

That confident grin of hers faded over the course of roughly one minute, seeing the transmitted view from multiple cameras shifting angles far more than was possible under the movements of the miniature droids.

They were being moved by someone, and Mara couldn’t see who was doing it.

Status readouts showed the droids had their locomotion disabled somehow. That shouldn’t be possible, the circuity was so small it required specialized tools to disassemble.

Two of them were placed in the quarters of the senate guards. Another two were in Drescran’s office and bedroom. The first places anyone would look for hidden cameras.

The senator’s residence was being infiltrated by someone, Mara could see brief shots of her in one feed, switching to another to watch her walk down the north corridor. A fairly short, thin woman in the uniform of the security force. Which meant her monitoring operation failed, and she’d been exposed. Mara’s breathing picked up as she tried to figure out what this meant for the mission. Her cameras being located was bad enough, and now they were being rearranged for some reason. If the cameras were found by Drescran's people, he’d assume he was being watched. Which meant this unknown agent wanted that. And Mara provided the perfect opportunity for them.

Unless that wasn’t really someone in Drescran’s employ. Or maybe the rebels were framing him. Staring helplessly at the feeds, thoughts spiraled through Mara’s head as she tried to extrapolate what was happening watched her miscalculations continue to compound each other.

* * *

Various possible scenarios played out in Barriss’s mind. In the wake of the senator’s questions about his status, he would become paranoid of his appointed guards, who would in turn become suspicious, and find the third-party cameras she’d left to spy on them, and suspicions would bounce off of each other until the senator’s career collapsed.

The droid cameras, those she could find, would all be disabled by removing and reconnecting their batteries to reset them, with their legs removed so they couldn’t be reactivated and escape. Searching around, compounding her sensor’s readings with Force-based intuition, Barriss located four in total. One pair were left in positions the regular security sweeps would easily find, the other was left in the quarters of the senator. There were undoubtedly others, and once those four were discovered, the senator would probably tear up the walls looking for them, each new one that was found feeding his suspicions.

One little addition to her plan she’d devised was placing a small datacard exclusively containing the obituary of Governor Prodric, placed onto Senator Drescran’s desk. If that didn’t send a clear message, Barriss wasn’t sure what would. Once that was done, she thought to thank Palpatine for making her work so much easier.

Senate guards assuming the senator was out to kill them, the senator assuming the guards were out to kill him, Drescran’s finances in disarray, the assassination of Prodric derailing the Sith’s own goals through spreading paranoia, the cascade of blame and treasonous implications spreading through Drescran’s circle of political allies while the Rebellion stole all his money. This was turning into a satisfyingly productive calamity.

This did leave one other issue.

_Who placed the cameras in the first place?_

There was always an undercurrent of menace wherever Barriss traveled, because wherever she traveled was a place occupied by the Empire, or a place it sought to conquer. This was different. Closer, yet somehow less distinct.

There was someone out there, someone watching. This building had the attention of someone, Barriss could sense it, and she turned her head to look out across Moseprous from the top floor window, reaching out with the Force and trying to follow this presence to the source amid all the millions of sapient beings living amongst the rocks.

_Who are you?_

* * *

A chill went up Mara’s spine as she felt like someone was watching her, leaving her gasping and worriedly looking around her room as though she expected someone to be there. Finding nothing and returning her attention to the camera feed, she wiped beads of cold sweat from her brow, only to start sweating more when she realized how this agent blindsided her.

That was wrong. This was very wrong.

Realization after realization hit Mara one after another. The surveillance droids avoided detection from security sweeps, they weren’t equipped to detect and avoid someone else moving them around telekinetically. As physically impossible movements of the cameras kept occurring, Mara knew what was happening and how unprepared she was.

_There’s another Force-user out there._

Given the capabilities of Fulcrum, Mara should’ve anticipated this sooner. The development also made her own presence all the more necessary.

Reassuring herself that this setback was temporary, Mara calmed her mind, knowing how to maintain discipline in situations like this, and knowing that such discipline was essential for avoiding someone with power similar to her own. All her unexpected emotions were replaced with a singular, stoic focus on executing her new plan and capturing this rebel.

All her equipment was packed up and on her swoop bike in the space of three minutes, and Mara ascended up through the rock chasm, refusing to let some rebel scum get the better of her.

* * *

To keep ahead of the Empire, Ahsoka and Barriss were strict about how much time could be spent in one location, and why. Following a successful operation, no matter how apparently minor the attack was, they’d stay no longer than half the expected time needed for an imperial task force to reach their location. At the very least they’d take the _Eclipse_ beyond the planet’s gravity well from where they could quickly jump to hyperspace, only lingering if there was some pressing reason to stay in the same solar system. Yesterday’s AT-AT sabotage wouldn’t be noticed for a week at a minimum, it wasn’t a problem. For this little setup with the senator, they could comfortably leave in the morning as he began his work day and pieces began falling into place before any potential restrictions could be placed on traffic to and from Moseprous.

Now it seemed there was a Force-sensitive imperial agent at work, somewhere within this city, who was now certainly aware someone was acting against them. It was time to MOVE.

Instead of foolishly moving towards the hideout, or moving further away and possibly providing its location by an intelligent pursuer’s inference, Barriss moved orthogonal and kept a roughly consistent distance. Coming to a stop, hovering in the darkness by a cliff face, Barriss pulled out her comm and signaled Ahsoka.

“How’s the weather?” Ahsoka’s voice came through, slightly staticky as the signal was relayed out of the cave network, and sounding tired from whatever exercises she’d been doing.

“There are some clouds in the distance,” Barriss said, as per their standard system of innocuous and vague code phrases which could signal whether the other was safe, in danger, or somewhere in between. “Do you feel all right?”

“Fine,” Ahsoka said, concern showing in her voice as Barriss was sensing danger through the Force and she wasn’t. “You?”

“I’ll be out a bit later than I expected,” Barriss said. After a pensive moment, she kept her voice calm and added, “It’s probably nothing.”

“I’m sure you’re right. Be safe. Love you,” Ahsoka said quickly before ending the communication.

* * *

‘It’s probably nothing’ was the signal that they needed to drop everything and run.

If anyone was somehow listening to that conversation, they wouldn’t know where Barriss was headed, because she hadn’t provided or even selected a pickup location yet. It wouldn’t take long to get everything aboard the _Eclipse_ , then once the ship was in the air, Barriss would signal it to whatever spot she’d chosen, get aboard, then they were gone in minutes with a different holographic disguise and ship ID than the one they’d flown in with. She and Ahsoka had not survived for this long by being unprepared.

“Guys, get back in the ship, we’re leaving, NOW!” Ahsoka said as the droidekas contracted and rolled through the cavern, their upgraded scanners running security sweeps as Ahsoka quickly looked around for anything she may have dropped, not wanting to leave any sign of her presence.

Barriss was out there on her own, possibly with someone watching her, and every moment they dawdled and weren’t leaving the planet left more time in which something terrible could happen.

At the boarding ramp, Ahsoka stopped, her montrals ringing as the sound of a ship’s engine faintly echoed through the tunnels. Pausing to reach out with the Force, Ahsoka tried to determine if it was anything to worry about. Could be someone simply exploring these caves, though she’d prefer to avoid the attention.

When her extended awareness reached the new ship in an effort to figure out its path and avoid it, Ahsoka felt herself being sensed instead.

Eyes opening with a gasp of surprise, Ahsoka could hear the sound of the distant engine abruptly stop. It returned a second later, growing louder, faster, and nearer, roaring down the tunnel towards her until some kind of angular, grungy, asymmetrical imperial transport shot through the cave above and came to a sudden stop over the landing area, the slipstream coming off of it when it slammed to a halt mid-air sending ripples through the glowing blue waters beneath it. The way it held position a few meters over the water, the _Eclipse’s_ path out was blocked.

* * *

Mara prided herself on keeping her emotions under control, but Fulcrum, or at least an agent of Fulcrum, was making doing so quite difficult. During the stakeout, Mara was anticipating a secret transmission or a meeting or an exchange, something small to start with, a thread to pull. Not this sudden act of confusing, paranoia-inducing sabotage with the direct presence of someone who quite possibly was Fulcrum herself. And she was extremely difficult to keep up with.

This was still salvageable. Mara knew that. Whatever Fulcrum was doing, she could counter it. First, she needed more information, which was why she would hunt her down.

The sensors she had was the best in the galaxy, able to distinguish and trace sound and movement from a vehicle without need for planting a tracker, which was good because there hadn’t been enough time to figure out which of the many bikes and speeders dotting the streets belonged to her mysterious target until spotting her don that stupid cloak and take off from a hundred meters away. This way Mara could keep following from a safe distance.

Or rather, that’s what she was attempting to do before her target’s swoop accelerated to unsafe levels, demanding Mara do the same, barely able to keep up and refusing to slow down if it killed her.

* * *

Barriss focused on the feel of the Force, a new presence emerging. Unlike the earlier, obfuscated feeling she’d sensed, the knowledge that someone else was out there waiting, this was unmistakably the furious power of the dark side. The same time it appeared, Barriss could also sense Ahsoka was drawing on the Force as well. A fight was about to happen.

Spinning the swoop bike around, Barriss shot through the chasms towards the _Eclipse’s_ secret landing spot at a speed any normal person would’ve crashed, relying on the Force to boost her reaction time, swerving through tunnels, as the wind roared past her.

* * *

_There you are._

Putting on his helmet, Galen leapt up and out of the _Rogue Shadow’s_ upper airlock, landing on the forward edge of the top hull and looking down to see Ahsoka ignite her lightsabers and ready to fight. Amid the calming blue light of the cave’s plants, his red lightsaber ignited.

Beneath his helmet, with his target in sight, Galen let out a quiet sigh of relief before leaping off the ship down to ground to face Ahsoka.


	8. Tag Team Battle

Staring down the enemy in front of her, Ahsoka analyzed the situation. His ship was still hovering behind him, with a pair of laser cannons at the front which he could’ve tried turning on her, implying he was arrogant and bloodthirsty enough to want to take her on in single combat. His red lightsaber was held in a reverse grip, and unusually for a dark sider, he wasn’t at all chatty, cautiously stepping towards her while she backed away, moving past the _Eclipse’s_ boarding ramp. Luring him directly into the line of fire of the droidekas lurking within. Based on Ahsoka’s experiences with inquisitors, she would’ve expected the droidekas to easily overwhelm this one with their blaster fire.

They could not, at least not the three who were crowding the ship’s entrance.

A slab of stone was pulled up from the ground to act as a shield for the inquisitor, absorbing so many blaster shots it began to melt, and was then thrown at the droidekas. At that high collision speed, their shields were able to protect them, but they couldn’t negate that level of momentum and clattered backwards onto the metal floor.

“Guys, stay in the ship, I’ll handle this!” Ahsoka yelled. “Cici, power everything up! This won’t take long.”

Breaking brittle stones of the ground beneath his feet, Ahsoka toppled the inquisitor onto his back and put all her weight into a downward swing as he rolled out of the way, getting up and lunging at her with fast, wide arcs. Ahsoka found his saber style was some kind of reverse-grip version of Vaapad, with intense, rapid swings coming so fast the space around him was a blur of glowing red. Ahsoka gradually backed up, blocking only as much as necessary to let him tire himself out.

It was taking a while. Whatever his rank, he was tougher than the inquisitors she’d fought before. Ahsoka saw an opening and kicked the assassin’s wrist, and, impressively, he didn’t drop his weapon, though the strike did knock him off-balance enough to make him jump back and away from her.

“Who sent you?” Ahsoka asked, as though she didn’t already know exactly who’d sent the helmeted black-armored agent with a red lightsaber to come kill her.

The question was met with another attack as Ahsoka deflected saber strikes aimed at cutting off her arms.

This assassin, in Ahsoka’s experience, was proving increasingly unusual. Despite the first impression and general look, he wasn’t an inquisitor, the closer he got the more she could see it. The saber wasn’t their standard issue, it was only a single blade, and haphazardly put together with a red glow from the crystal within emerging through the seams of the casing. Then there was his outfit. Armored, black, menacing, and... ragged. The ends of his sleeves were frayed, there were blaster scorch marks on his chest, and some large stitches made with varying skill at several of the seams. His helmet, simple durasteel protection with a Mandalorian-style T-visor extending down into some kind of filter over the mouth, was scuffed and pocked. Damage to the outfit was repaired well enough to keep it fully functional, but nothing was ever replaced. Like the dark side suddenly faced a budget cut.

Switching her sabers off, Ahsoka invited another attack, prepared to seize her enemy’s lightsaber. Instead, he turned his saber off as well, dashed forward, and punched left, only for his fist to be caught by Ahsoka. He tried again on the right, ending up with both his fists in Ahsoka’s grip.

After a moment of being in a lock, Ahsoka planted her feet, grit her teeth, and began pushing the assassin’s hands back away from herself. She was met with similar determination from her opponent, but a few seconds later, his emotions quickly changed from fierce to surprised to utterly bewildered at the realization he was getting outmuscled. Both of them could hear his boots losing traction and skidding backwards across the weak stone, his head confusedly looking between their locked hands and the ground.

Trying to throw her off balance, he pushed hard up and into Ahsoka’s right hand while ripping his right fist away, then leaned in and punched into the opening. Directly at where a human opponent’s kidney would’ve been, and where a Togruta’s larger, tougher ribcage extended to. It hurt his hand more than it hurt Ahsoka.

Ahsoka grabbed the assassin by his left wrist and the back of his neck, then slammed him into the stone wall, dragging him across it, his helmeted head jostling as it scraped against the irregular stone surface, sparks flying from the metal and leaving behind a trail of rock dust. Managing to hook one foot into a stone niche, he stopped Ahsoka from dragging him long enough to kick her in the gut with the other leg, wobbling slightly as he got back on the ground and flexing his strained ankle, then drawing a fibercord grapple from a pouch on his belt. The chord wrapped around Ahsoka, restraining her for a second, until she easily cut through it with her saber and the assassin’s shoulders slumped in aggravation. Ahsoka wondered how he’d seriously expected that trick to work out, Force-pushing him back so hard he skidded across the stone and flopped into the underground lake.

* * *

This was going poorly. Galen had anticipated Proxy’s emulation of Ahsoka wouldn’t hold up after so many years, but even dialing up the speed and strength hadn’t prepared him for this.

Trudging out of the lake, Galen jostled the water out of his lightsaber and reactivated it, the damp weapon sputtering for a second before the red blade returned, steam evaporating off by the heat of the plasma, then charged in to continue this fruitless attack. Throw some rocks, Ahsoka evaded. Slash at her, she’d block, and he couldn’t get around both of her blades.

Seeing Ahsoka completely shrug off the attacks, Galen felt an encroaching sense of dread, and anger at himself for not being strong enough to finish this quickly. Fear, rage, these were emotions that could fuel him, if he embraced them, those drives for survival.

 _More_.

All that arm training, and even when he swung with both hands, she blocked with one, and knocked him onto his back once again. As Ahsoka swung her sabers down at him, Galen planted both feet on her stomach and kicked her up over his head, letting his rage guide him. Every second the fight teetered between victory and death, he felt more in tune with the dark side.

 _More_.

Ahsoka punched him in the throat, evidently smart enough to avoid striking his helmet with her bare hands. Squaring off again, Galen deflected Ahsoka’s saber and leaned in to headbutt her. If she wouldn’t got for his helmet, he’d bring the helmet to her. Determination built up in his mind, obsessed with finding a way to defeat her, refusing to be defeated no matter how much she hit him, taking all the pain he was in and using it to incite anger at his enemy.

 _MORE_.

* * *

Within the darkness of the cave network, hesitant to give away her position by turning on the speeder’s lights, Mara tried to get her bearings from the dim lights of various access points, lit up in cool colors by bioluminescent alga.

Though aggravated by the recent events upending her plans, she could sense no danger coming for her.

What Mara needed was a plan for capturing Fulcrum once she finally stopped. She was well-armed, all things considered, enough to take on most foes. Blaster, some stun grenades, pocket stun pike, and of course her lightsaber. Right now she was very much wishing this swoop bike had its own laser cannon.

The cave grew dimmer as Mara moved up into an area with little of that algae, and Mara did a double take as she noticed the tracker showed the gap between her and Fulcrum suddenly got a whole lot shorter in the middle of this darkness.

She froze cold when she suddenly got all the illumination she could ask for, provided by Fulcrum, hovering overhead and seated on her own swoop bike, emitting arcs of Force lightning out of her fingers while staring straight down at Mara. This Mirialan, showing her face to Mara for the first time, did not appear merciful. Several bolts converged on Mara, making her think she was about to be killed as she instinctively and uselessly tried to shield her face from the electricity with her arms. Instead the lightning coursed into her speeder bike, shorting out its systems until its repulsors broke down and the bike fell pathetically into the water. Mara was left unharmed and treading water while the bike sank out from under her. Fulcrum sped off into the distance, the noise and glow of her swoop’s engine growing smaller and smaller.

_WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!_

* * *

_That’s one problem dealt with,_ Barriss thought as she ducked and weaved through the winding tunnels, more concerned with Ahsoka’s safety than with whoever that agent was. Despite removing her as a factor, the sense of incoming danger Barriss felt was only growing stronger.

Getting Ahsoka and herself into their ship and off of this planet took priority over thoroughly defeating any single enemy. Any moment a Star Destroyer might appear over the city, as Barriss mentally plotted out the most efficient route out of the caves to put some distance between themselves and the most probable hovering position of a warship.

Further in, the light of a red saber clashing with Ahsoka’s white blades was reflected off the cave walls, the sound of sabers clashing joining in with the flashes of light, Barriss rounding the corner in the middle of a duel between Ahsoka and what looked to be an inquisitor.

The incoming swoop bike came off the elevated cave entrance and nearly crushed the inquisitor as it fell, only for him to grab it by the forward outriggers and hold it in place. Still gripping the controls firmly, Barriss left the seat, twisted her body, and kicked the assassin in the side of the neck. With a grunt of pain, he hurled the swoop back, Barriss letting go and landing on the cave floor, she and Ahsoka exchanging a quick, reassuring smirk with each other as they prepared to fight together. Then her bike’s still-functional repulsor and engine caused it to spiral out of control and impact the cave wall, outriggers embedding themselves in the brittle, fragile stone.

The inquisitor sliced through one of the cave’s stalagmites, pointing the conical rock at Barriss and Force-throwing it at her. She stopped it mid-air, pointed it back at him, began rotating it like a drill, and shot it back with far greater speed, shattering the rock wall behind him.

A spray of water trickled through the damaged cave wall, followed by another, and another, cracks spread and merging with those formed by the swoop bike’s impact until the rock crumbled and released a flood of water from another cave section that swept Barriss and the assassin down into a chasm which cut through the cave.

* * *

Gasping for air as she emerged up out of the water, still near the _Eclipse_ as the water drained into the chasm, holding her sabers out as a light as she stood over the edge of the chasm, Ahsoka called out, “BARRISS! Where are you?”

“I am over here, Ahsoka,” Barriss’s voice replied, surprising and relieving Ahsoka that it came from behind her, on solid ground after Ahsoka was certain she’d gotten caught up in that water. Turning around, Ahsoka’s relief turned back into more intense worry in an instant.

Whatever was walking toward her, it wasn’t Barriss. Though it was a good imitation, there was no fooling Ahsoka.

There were no tattoos on the backs of her hands, even though Barriss got new ones a long time ago. The saber was the correct orange hue, but the hilt was different. Clothing was similar to the disguise outfit Barriss went out in, but the minor details were all wrong, different belt buckle and pocket sizes, like it was recreated after a brief glance. Ahsoka didn’t even need to use the Force to sense it was an imposter, though it did help to confirm things, which is why she didn’t hesitate to take a swing at its head.

“Ahsoka, what are you doing?” it asked, still smiling eerily as the orange and white blades pressed and sparked against each other.

Ahsoka’s response was to Force-push it into a wall, and ‘Barriss’ flickered. Holograms, though the illusion was maintained too well for Ahsoka to see what was underneath. The imposter shrugged off the impact without any sign of pain or damage, standing back up to keep fighting.

“I apologize for interfering, however executing Lord Vader’s will takes priority. And only _I_ can be allowed to terminate the master,” it said, dropping the act in a somewhat confusing couple of sentences from Ahsoka’s perspective as it came closer to duel her, switching between lightsaber styles with remarkable ease and fluidity.

A solid punched to the head from Ahsoka spun the false Barriss’s head 180 degrees, seemingly to no effect as its head went on to slowly complete the full rotation and stare back at Ahsoka. Whatever was under those holograms had to be a droid, no organic species could twist like that and hold the position.

It was fast, too fast for anyone without the Force to guide them, to show them how to avoid the attacks. And no matter how she slammed her blades against it, that damn copy of Barriss kept the same emptily pleasant expression. The imposter levitated several rocks and flung them at Ahsoka by simply holding out his hand, though the action wasn’t a usage of the Force. Some kind of miniaturized tractor beams, Ahsoka guessed.

When facing other Force-users, Ahsoka found techniques such as pushes and pulls would collide and deflect off of each other. This imposter’s imitation telekinesis didn’t have any such effect, nor could it protect itself from Ahsoka, and both duelists were knocked back and onto the cave floor.

“If you are undeterred by Barriss Offee, perhaps an alternate combat module would be more useful,” the droid said. Holograms flickered as Ahsoka shrugged off the pain and got back up.

Then she was stuck in shock as her the holograms reformed, her opponent’s build growing significantly taller and wider, lightsaber crystal swapped out for blue.

“Yes, this should be more appropriate,” said Anakin Skywalker, the Hero With No Fear confidently walking towards her, brushing his hair back with his free hand. “What do you think, Ahsoka?”

Following another moment of staring in wide-eyed shock, listening to her own increasingly shallow breaths, Ahsoka screamed with rage as she held out her hands, fingers curled into hooks, lifting the droid with the Force and slamming it over and over into the cave walls, harder each time, trying to break whatever projectors were making that holographic cover. Angry screams echoed through the cave along with the impacts until the droid slammed into the ground at Ahsoka’s feet.

“Hm. It would appear I misjudged your reaction,” the droid said thoughtfully, still looking and sounding exactly like Anakin as it smiled up at her from where it lay. Ahsoka knelt down and punched the fake Anakin in the face, an act she regretted upon feeling the pain of her fist striking metal. Then she did it again, and again, feeling the metal crumpled with each strike as she ignored what it was doing to her hands.

Then she grabbed the droid by the ankle and swung it overhead, impaling it on a narrow stalagmite, holograms fizzling, sparks flying, and revealing a thin droid that went limp as he was rendered inactive. Ahsoka was left alone without the object of her anger, still full of terrified adrenaline as she could only think about how _good_ that felt.

* * *

Mara coughed and wheezed as she ran through the tunnels on foot. Of course, normally she prided herself on physical fitness, having performed feats that had allowed her to survive where lesser agents would’ve died. It was irrelevant in this case. These tunnels spread for kilometers, and she had to catch up with a swoop bike.

Still, she was doing it, and would not allow Fulcrum to get away so easily.

In the expansive cavern she now entered, she could see two ships, both of them light transports, one landed and one hovering. On the rocky beach of an underground lake, there was a Togruta holding a pair of lightsabers, whom Mara observed and focused on from a dark recess of the tunnel through a portable monoscope.

On the Togruta’s forehead, partly obscured by her metal headband, was a familiar symbol. Two bending lines flanked by diamonds.

_THAT’S Fulcrum._

The symbol of the incredibly secretive rebel network which all imperial intelligence agencies had failed to dismantle for years... was the same one on the forehead of its founder, out and visible for all the galaxy to see.

 _Oh, that’s real cute,_ Mara thought sardonically to herself as she sneaked up to the ship that was landed, which she hoped was Fulcrum's. There was no sign of the first woman, an agent of Fulcrum, Mara supposed, and the fact there was someone even higher made Mara concerned, especially given the power that Mirialan demonstrated. Had Mara’s speeder been disabled by some electrical weapon she wasn’t familiar with, or was that really Force lightning?

This did present an opportunity, Fulcrum now alone and looking rather exhausted from some previous fight.

It also didn’t matter, because Mara couldn’t make use of it. That Mirialan must still be around her somewhere, and even if Mara incapacitated Fulcrum, she had no means of leaving with her since she was several kilometers deep inside a cave with her swoop bike now sunk to the bottom of an underground lake. There were two ships present, which Mara may or may not be capable of hijacking and which may or may not contain more enemies to deal with. She was armed, but against someone who very probably could use the Force, adequate weapons were not available to her.

Mara attached a tracking device itself to the starboard landing gear of the freighter. Amateurs tended to design such devices to fit on the hull, where they could be easily spotted or detected by the ship’s own sensors. The volume saved by not needing as firm a hold on the metal also made the tracker much smaller. The tracker was set, and Mara was content with backing off and trailing Fulcrum to her next destination to deal with later.

Then, as she slunk away into the darkness of the caves for a long walk to the outside, she felt herself yanked out of the shadows with a very angry Fulcrum staring her down.

* * *

“Alright, three in a row,” Ahsoka said with audible frustration as she now faced off with a teenage human girl hiding under the _Eclipse_. This one didn't look like an inquisitor at all, being dressed rather casually aside from the small weapons she was carrying. “Who sent _you_?”

“Fulcrum, isn't it?” she replied, brushing off the fact she'd been discovered. “I would recommend you surrender peacefully, unless you think your little freighter can make it past the Star Destroyers above us.”

For an instant this succeeded in frightening Ahsoka with the reality of how outmatched they were, until she put together certain details. Minutes ago, Barriss had only felt a vague feeling of danger, and hadn’t transmitted any further warning. There was no way Star Destroyers could descend on the city so fast. There was also the fact this girl in front of her had come from the same tunnel as Barriss, she was dripping wet, without a vehicle, and Ahsoka could tell how tired she was.

_Oh, I don’t know exactly what happened, but Barriss got you good, didn’t she?_

“No there aren’t,” Ahsoka flatly replied, diminishing the new arrival’s smugness. “There’s no way multiple Star Destroyers have shown up without us noticing them. You know I’m Fulcrum, but you had no idea I was here, you don’t even know what my name is.”

The calm expression the young agent wore faltered as she ignited her own lightsaber. Magenta, surprisingly, instead of the expected red. The latest assassin practically snarled as she held her weapon close, angled to aggressively stabbed at Ahsoka as she leaned out of the way. Ahsoka blocked an overhead swing, pushing the blade to the side to keep her remarkably fast enemy off-balance.

* * *

In the depths of the chasm, Galen’s lightsaber provided a small spot of red light as he carefully stepped through the darkness, expecting Barriss to attack from the shadows at any moment, boots trailing through the ankle-deep water.

Separated from his target, fighting Barriss Offee on his own. This was the exact situation Galen was hoping to avoid.

“If you stand down and surrender, I promise no harm will come to you,” Barriss’s voice echoed around him.

Galen raised his saber and waited. The rock walls were only a few meters wide, nowhere to remain hidden. Only two directions to come from, and Galen waited and listened, expecting an attack from behind.

“...Very well,” Barriss lamented as she appeared in front of Galen, the entire chasm lit up in violet from the lightning arcing out of her fingers. Galen tried to protect himself with his saber, only to realize the lightning wasn’t being directed towards him.

The lightning arced into the water, conducting through the shallow pool they were standing in and shocking Galen, causing him to spasm and shudder where he stood as the metal segments of his armor made him an easier path for the electric current.

The instant the spasms subsided, Galen stabbed his saber into the water, creating a plume of steam he directed at Barriss to ward her off. Instead of being pushed back, she called a wave of water that overwhelmed the steam, carried Galen with it, and slammed him back against the rock wall.

Giving up on attacking for the moment, Galen tried to jump up out of the water, aiming for one of the rock edges along the walls, someplace out of the path of the lightning with spots he could grip.

 _Force lightning has a short range, she can’t get me up here OH NO_ , Galen thought as Barriss, rather than the typical bolts of lightning, had evidently come up with a way to create ball lightning on demand. Fizzling orbs of plasma flew at him, electricity arcing into the rock wall as they converged from multiple directions around him, muscles spasming again as he was telekinetically slammed back down and splashing into the water. Barriss was intent on keeping him pinned down. Playing dead for a few seconds as Barriss stepped closer, Galen lunged forward at her in a spray of water and was immediately smacked sideways into the other rock wall. Instead of moving towards her again, Galen Force-pulled Barriss into close range, finally locking blades with her orange saber.

As the two faced each other, Galen was astonished at just how tough Barriss was. It was both impressive and aggravating that even with his reflexes what they were, Galen couldn’t hit her. His own defense was keeping up with her saber, not that it mattered. Barriss didn’t need to directly hit him, whenever he got closer, another lightning bolt stunned him. The water was heating up from how much energy she was putting into it, demonstrating complete command of the environment.

Vader wouldn’t complain about him killing other Jedi, Galen had a specific target, and the mission was turning out challenging enough as it was. Calling more on the dark side, it was time to demonstrate the full power of the Sith.

* * *

Levitating one of the many surrounding rocks, Mara flung it at Fulcrum and successfully hit her square in the chest, feeling satisfied by the blow. 

Until Fulcrum shot several larger rocks back at higher speed, most missing, others grazing Mara, tearing at her jacket and knocking her down. Fulcrum's downward swing was blocked by Mara's saber, the Togruta's superior strength quickly overwhelming her. Grappling with Fulcrum and running out of ideas, Mara opened her mouth, turned her head, and bit one of those striped lekku dangling in front of her. The scream of pain she was rewarded with motivated her to bite down harder and not let go as Fulcrum yelped some confused profanity at the tactic.

With one desperate move, Mara swung her saber at the Togruta, who deftly blocked it with her primary saber, still not pulling back hard enough to rip her lekku out of Mara's teeth as the latter stumbled to her feet, refusing to let go. She was tough, Mara gave her that, but the Emperor’s Hand wasn’t wasting her chance, getting a firm grip on her struggling enemy’s right arm and holding it in place as Mara drew her active stun pike and jammed it into her opponent's wrist, vibrations breaking the bones.

Screaming in pain from the fractures, Fulcrum tried to swing her shoto at Mara, only for her to finally let go and pull back, satisfied at incapacitating Fulcrum's weapon hand.

Mara picked up the dropped lightsaber and tested the heft of the white-bladed weapon as she darted towards Fulcrum’s unprotected right side, ready to finish this. Fulcrum was best taken alive to be interrogated for information on the Rebellion, and keeping her arms wasn’t necessary, though Mara would avoid the legs. Her swoop bike was gone and she didn’t want to carry the Togruta through those caves, so making her walk would have to do. 

Though without her main saber, Fulcrum still had the Force, and stopped Mara's approach, holding out her good hand and exerting enough of a push that Mara couldn't get closer. Unconcerned and with other options, Mara threw a stun grenade, only for Fulcrum to stop it mid-air with the Force, then send it back and strike Mara in the forehead a second before it hit the ground and went off. Dizzy, the environment spinning, she wasn’t able to tell she was being hefted up by the scruff of her neck before getting slammed down into the ground.

* * *

As she checked her wounded arm and watched her surroundings in case anybody else wanted a piece of her, Ahsoka heard a desperate, flailing scream coming up behind her, and turned about trying to find where it was coming from when the first assassin flew over her head, hitting the ground hard and with a few rolls, only stopping once he slid into a rock wall about ten meters away. The right side of his helmet was ripped apart, jagged metal edges bending outward from large cracks.

Next to Ahsoka, Barriss gracefully alighted onto the ledge, sporting a nasty black eye and needing a moment to readjust the hood of her cloak. Upon noticing Ahsoka’s broken forearm, Barriss gently held it in her hands and began healing it.

“Thanks,” Ahsoka said. The pain was relieved immediately, but fully mending the bone would take longer.

“What happened?” asked Barriss.

“We’ve got another agent and some kind of infiltrator-assassin droid,” explained Ahsoka, tilting her head back towards the inactive droid and the unconscious girl.

“I see... The arm is a rush job. Don’t put stress on it if you can avoid it,” Barriss warned as both of them kept an eye on the other assassin. Quickly getting to his feet, he was clearly disoriented. The fight with Barriss and his subsequent landing had seriously damaged his helmet, which he pulled off with his left hand, revealing a very angry young human male with a smear of blood on his right temple, and some large bruises. For a second he looked around trying to figure out where he’d landed, checked his broken helmet, then ineffectively threw it at Ahsoka, narrowly missing her head as she leaned out of the way, loudly clattering back down into the chasm behind her.

The assassin’s right shoulder had been dislocated when he hit the ground. As Barriss worked on Ahsoka’s broken arm, they watched with morbid curiosity as he got a grip on his upper arm, and shoved the joint back into place, wincing with severe pain but otherwise appearing unaffected and testing the shoulder’s range of motion.

“You shouldn’t do that!” Barriss yelled at him.

“...What?!” he confusedly yelled back across the distance separating them, the first word either of them had heard him say. Instead of attacking them again like Ahsoka had expected, he seemed baffled by the reproval.

“You shouldn’t _do_ that. Relocating a shoulder could cause permanent damage to all the surrounding tissue if you don’t perform the procedure correctly, _which you did not!_ ” Barriss answered critically. “Who taught you to do that? You barely hesitated- does this happen often? Do you dislocate and relocate your shoulder often? How many times have you done that to yourself?”

As she railed at him, the assassin suddenly became a bit disconcerted by her professional medical opinion.

“Um, thr- no, four times,” he said, sounding a bit nervous.

“Only the right shoulder, or the left, too?” asked Barriss.

“...The left one’s been hurt twice,” he said hesitantly. Seeming to realize how far he’d strayed from his task of killing these two, the assassin got a grip on his saber. “Does this really seem like a good time to give me medical advice?”

“YES,” Barriss shouted back.

“We’ve got your accomplices,” Ahsoka warned, trying to refocus this confrontation and pointing down at the unconscious imperial assassin. “You can’t beat us both without help.”

The dark sider studied the situation for a moment, craning his neck to see the other assassin at Ahsoka’s feet, then looking oddly confused before bluntly replying, “I have no idea who that is.”

“ _Really_ ,” Ahsoka said disbelievingly.

“She didn’t come here with me,” he said with a shrug as he wiped blood off his brow and flicked it off his fingers, looking annoyed at the pause in the fight. The honesty in his voice was surprising, and given the timing of the situation, extremely difficult to believe. “If you want to fight, we’ll fight, don’t hide behind someone who’s not involved,” the assassin said, taking a step forward and raising his saber.

“What about the droid?” Ahsoka asked, a look of shock overcoming the young man as he realized his droid was in danger.

“PROXY!” he shouted, expression switching from grim determination to abject terror at the condition of the droid, still inactive and skewered by a rock. Then it was back to grim determination as he charged at incredible speed towards the two rebels, getting between them and his droid.

Barriss swung her blade at the assassin when he reached out, grabbed her by the wrist, spun her around with one arm, and hurled her away.

 _WHAT?_ Was the only thing Ahsoka could think as the assassin shot towards her so fast he didn’t even touch the ground, their sabers colliding with enough force to almost knock her off balance. A kick to the stomach launched her back several meters into a rock, and if it wasn’t for her armor, Ahsoka was sure she’d have multiple broken ribs.

* * *

“You really shouldn’t have done that,” Ahsoka said angrily as she and Barriss dusted themselves off.

“I could say the same,” Galen replied as he carefully pried Proxy off the rock, then levitated him safely away and onto the top of the still-hovering _Rogue Shadow_ , along with this other unconscious imperial, whoever she was, after he’d grabbed her lightsaber. He needed it more than she did right now.

“I thought you weren’t with her,” said Ahsoka.

“I’m not. That doesn’t mean I want other people getting killed in this fight,” Galen said, igniting the magenta saber in his left hand, copying Ahsoka’s dual-wielding reverse-grip.

“You cannot win against both of us,” warned Barriss.

“ _Then come get me_ ,” he said.

To his regret, the two Jedi exchanged a glance, nodded to each other, and Galen suddenly felt like he was going to have a very bad time.

Fighting both Ahsoka and her companion wouldn't work, he had to get them apart.

No, he’d already fought them apart, they still beat him individually.

The combined skill of his enemies was demanding he do something he hadn’t done in a long time: fight defensively. While his saber collided with Ahsoka’s, more lightning erupted from the Barriss’s hand and struck him in the back, staggering him. Since she’d been using the lightning indirectly before now, it alarmed Galen just how painful those bolts were.

_Focus lightsaber defense on Barriss. I can dodge fists and saber swings, I can’t dodge bolts of lightning._

Taunting them had been such a stupid move. This was why he never talked during fights, you either waste time belittling someone weaker instead of doing your job right, or you end up looking like an idiot when the positions get reversed.

 _‘Then come get me’, well, they’re coming and getting me. What a clever line, you idiot,_ he thought to himself as he tried to come up with a plan. Barriss managed to kick him in the right shoulder, and it hurt unimaginably.

Ahsoka had completely exceeded his expectations of her skill. Barriss was no weaker, and she could use Force lightning despite being a former Jedi. She shouldn’t be able to use Force lightning, and yet there she was, violet arcs crackling out of her fingers. Lightsaber throws were out of the question, he couldn’t leave one side exposed like that when they were both coming at him.

_Who ARE these two?_

This wasn’t working, he couldn’t keep taking hits like this. These weren’t inexperienced fighters with unskilled, inefficient attacks he could shrug off. One always kept in his blind spot while the other came from the front, they knew how to follow through their strikes to deal the most impact, they were targeting soft tissue, gaps in his armor, and it all _hurt_.

Galen turned around to keep his saber in the correct direction to block the Force lightning, while sending stones and other debris at Ahsoka to keep her off balance. Retaining his focus, Galen concentrated his attacks on Ahsoka, as she was the only one Lord Vader was interested in. Galen noticed that she was relying on her non-dominant hand, and even though she had her shoto, she wasn’t using it. He struck her in the apparently weakened arm with a right hook, but before he could attack again, he was pulled back several meters and kicked in the right kidney by Barriss.

After a minute of this, Barriss appeared to realize Ahsoka was Galen’s target, repeatedly getting between the two of them or waiting to flank Galen whenever he attacked, requiring he keep backing up or dodging. Even with everything else happening in this fight, now he couldn’t stop thinking about his shoulder.

Blocking on both sides, Ahsoka on the right, Barriss on the left, Galen felt his arms weakening, blades coming nearer. Then a rock flew straight into his stomach, knocking him backward for Ahsoka to knee him in the left kidney, and Barriss to kick him in his injured stomach. It was at this point Galen finally realized they weren’t really trying to kill him, preferring to capture him now that they could confidently take him on without risking their lives.

A second saber wouldn’t be enough to make up the difference here, he had to retreat.

_Retreat?_

_Retreat..._

The shocks and bruises were adding up. Moving was becoming more difficult. If he didn’t escape soon, he wouldn’t be able to.

He was leaving his mission unfulfilled.

He was useless to his master if he couldn’t defeat his targets.

Looking up at the _Shadow_ , considering how to escape, Galen saw Proxy was gone and so was that other agent.

* * *

Mara had the worst headache in the history of the galaxy. Yes, she was alive, but at what cost?

Every single part of her body hurt, and she was definitely concussed, leading to her rummaging through this ship’s medical equipment and injecting herself with bacta and an anti-inflammatory agent. After a moment, her vision and balance cleared up enough for her to get up and list towards the cockpit while holding a freeze pack to her head, leaving that droid she’d dragged in back at the ladder to the airlock in case it turned out to be useful for something. Through the canopy, she could see the whole fight taking place, swirling arcs of red, orange, white... and her magenta blade.

_He took my saber._

_Prick,_ she thought instinctively as she checked to see her weapon missing from her belt before she grudgingly admitted her unexpected ally needed it a lot more than she did, as he appeared to be losing. Pretty badly, too.

 _What kind of weapons does this ship have?_ Mara wondered to herself as she studied the controls. If Fulcrum and her Mirialan friend couldn’t be defeated on foot, Mara wasn’t going to forego bombarding them.

The answer was ‘good ones’. Auto-tracking laser cannons and a whopping _twenty_ proton torpedoes loaded and ready. Better hold off on those and not bring the entire cave down on her.

Not that doing so was an option anyway, the controls were locked biometrically. Ripping open a panel below the console, Mara reattached the necessary wires to bypass the ship’s startup, enough for her to pilot it, not enough to activate the weapon systems. Not yet, anyway, that'd take another five minutes. Five minutes she probably didn’t have. Maybe that droid could interface with the computer and give her access.

That guy down there who was fighting her targets wasn’t familiar to her, lacking a uniform or clear identifier. This ship and the droid she’d dragged aboard were all definitely imperial design, and he had a red lightsaber like Vader and his inquisitors.

He’d also made a point of moving her out of the fight. The battle she was watching had given her the opportunity to escape when those rebels had her in their clutches. Did she really want to abandon him to Fulcrum? Especially when he was proving able to hold his own?

Sitting at the controls, watching the chaos, Mara mulled over what to do, contemplatively tapping her fingers against her temples as she watched her undefined ally getting thoroughly beaten.

* * *

With their combined focus keeping him pinned down to the ground, the assassin was almost exhausted, not that it stopped him from struggling, getting on his hands and knees, trying to stand up.

Accepting his refusal to be pinned down, Barriss and Ahsoka released their downward press and instead flung him upwards into the cave ceiling. Despite the impact being enough to incapacitate any normal person, the assassin landed on his feet, mind roiling with the dark side, ready to continue the fight no matter how much pain he was in. Ahsoka could feel not anger, but terror as their capture struggled desperately. Whatever he was afraid of, it wasn’t her or Barriss.

“I _will_ defeat you,” he said, trying to convince himself as he wobbled, blood dripping off his chin, barely able to keep a grip on his weapons as his hands trembled. Clipping the sabers to his belt, he reached up, and the cave began to shudder, more cracks spreading through the wall behind him.

_What the-_

The assassin, who a second ago had been struggling to stand, tore off and hurled fragments of the rock wall behind him, Ahsoka and Barriss either dodging the relatively slow rocks or stopping them with their own powers.

Barriss twitched two fingers and threw a rock at his shin fast enough to easily break the bone, causing him to double over. If he hadn’t rolled out of the way in time, he’d have gotten crushed under his own falling rocks, something his alarmed expression made clear he also realized as he looked back at the shattered stone, out of ideas and out of energy.

* * *

Galen was losing.

He was going to lose to these Jedi. Jedi didn’t kill their opponents when beaten. He’d live. He’d live, and even if he escaped he’d have to go back to Lord Vader, and explain that he’d lost, and then...

No. No. No. He couldn’t fail his master. The dark lord was counting on him to do this. He’d placed his faith in Galen, how could an apprentice disappoint his master like this? He couldn’t lose to these monsters.

Galen cried out in agony over the shattered bone, then mustered up the strength to pause for a moment, collect himself, and use the pain, calling upon the power of the dark side, to pick himself up and continue fighting.

This did not work.

The tibia was already shattered, putting even a fraction of his weight on it intensified the pain several times over, causing him to collapse again.

The second try worked a little better, he at least remained standing that time, if a bit wobbly as he kept his weight on his good foot. Looking down, Galen could see blood steadily dripping from his boot.

Readying his sabers, Galen got ready to make one last strike at Ahsoka, kill her too. Then he stopped. He couldn’t take her down with him, because once again, Lord Vader wanted her alive. This was pointless. Even giving his life for success wasn’t an option here.

Feeling dizzy, Galen was about to collapse as Ahsoka and Barriss closed in on him, then they stopped, turned, and leapt as far away from him as they could manage as the _Rogue Shadow_ chaotically swooped and rotated overhead, gusts of air and the power of its engines blasting back sand and rock dust until the ship steadied, the airlock at the back opening for him and waiting pensively.

Putting what little strength he had left into the jump, Galen narrowly made it into the _Shadow_ , collapsing into the entry as he heard the door seal behind him and felt the acceleration of the ship speeding off through the caves.

* * *

The _Eclipse_ took the longest and most erratic of the five preplanned escape routes through the caves, emerging several kilometers from the city’s edge with the hyperdrive powered up. Rather than finding themselves faced with a blockade, the skies were clear of additional imperial ships.

Neither Ahsoka nor Barriss dared to speak a word until they were surrounded by the light of hyperspace. Once they were several lightyears away from Moseprous, they both relaxed in their seats, glancing at each other and silently wondering what to do next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was plotting out this fight, I wasn't expecting Proxy to be the most unsettling part of it, but here we are.
> 
> Writing the fight between these four required walking that fine line of Mara and Galen clearly being outmatched, but still a legitimate threat Ahsoka and Barriss need to take seriously. It’s difficult to appropriately balance how much damage each character inflicts or takes from the others, like the cut to Galen hurtling through the air and Barriss appearing. While writing the scene, there were iterations where she was completely fine or looking exhausted before I settled on her being generally ruffled by the off-screen fight and Galen is holding together well enough to get back up, dislocation notwithstanding. And despite Mara being the weakest character so far, I decided to throw her a few bones. Specifically, the ones in Ahsoka's arm.
> 
> A bit of a meta joke I wrote into the fight between Ahsoka/Barriss and Galen is that by The Force Unleashed’s mechanics, this fight would’ve been a massive pain in the ass. You regain health in that game by killing enemies, and some of the bosses summon goons periodically for you to drain the life out of, or however that’s supposed to work. The only ones to fill that role here are the droidekas, whom Galen does not kill. This is like a multi-stage dual boss battle with no health pickups, and this is the first boss fight of the game so you don’t even have any good powers yet.


	9. Overlapping Jurisdiction

“Well, where to now?” asked Barriss, rightly feeling their business on Moseprous was concluded after fleeing from it expecting an imperial armada to drop out of hyperspace in front of them.

“Tsaclyta. We move things forward as planned,” Ahsoka said as she cradled her injured arm. Aside from that, the two of them made it through the fight with only some scrapes and bruises. Nothing they couldn’t walk off, though Barriss was checking them both over anyway. The process of healing bone, despite being accelerated by Barriss’s efforts, still took several minutes.

“Ahsoka, those were children,” Barriss noted as she completed her work.

“They were teenagers,” corrected Ahsoka.

“They were teenagers with at least a few years’ worth of experience in combat,” countered Barriss. “The one with the violet lightsaber-”

“Looked magenta to me.”

“ _The one with the magenta saber_ broke your arm. How many people have successfully injured you like that?”

“That was luck,” Ahsoka said dismissively.

“Well, what if her luck holds long enough to put a blaster bolt through your heart? She knew how to operate a variety of weapons, including the pike she broke your arm with. You told me you defeated two inquisitors by yourself with minimal effort, but then ‘Red’ was proving a challenge as well. He was able to _throw me_. Those were not average assassins.”

“Wait, are we calling them Magenta and Red?” Ahsoka asked. “I’ll be honest, I’m not thrilled with the nicknames, but that’s probably the best way to distinguish them. Otherwise it’s Assassin 1 and Assassin 2. Then there’s that hologram droid, but that one’s easier to distinguish, Red called him ‘Proxy’.”

Silence hung in the cockpit for a moment, Ahsoka staring forward through the canopy while Barriss stared at her.

“Why are you being so nonchalant about this?” Barriss eventually asked. “The Empire discovered our location, and sent people to kill us.”

“No, _Anakin_ sent people to kill _me_ ,” Ahsoka snapped, tightening her grip on the yoke to control her shaking. “You’re right. Red had some good moves. My moves. The same ones my master taught me, and some new techniques I might’ve picked up if I’d stayed for a few more years.”

“...Oh,” Barriss said. “Ahsoka, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to- It’s okay,” Ahsoka said, briefly forcing back her anger when she turned to Barriss before slipping back into a bad mood, getting up out of her chair and pacing around restlessly in the small space. “I’ve been sitting around trying to think of a way to help him, to reach out to him. Meanwhile, the first thing _he_ does after getting off of Malachor is send assassins after me!” Ahsoka yelled, then hit her fists against the metal wall.

“STOP! Stop that!” Barriss yelled, grabbing Ahsoka’s hands and inspecting the torn skin as she began healing it again. A moment later, the scratched-up skin was repaired.

“Thanks,” Ahsoka said, watching as Barriss reached up to the skin around her own eye, finding a few bruises from the fight. “Hold on, let me do it.”

This kind of thing wasn’t Ahsoka’s strong point, and there wasn’t much opportunity to practice on other people. If they were in good enough condition she could still help, doing so would expose herself as a survivor of Order 66 and draw unwanted attention. If they were in such bad condition they weren’t conscious, there wasn’t anything she could do. It was either heal herself, which she was mediocre at, or heal Barriss, who rarely got hurt anyway. Still, after traveling with Barriss this long, Ahsoka had learned some basic healing techniques.

Barriss smiled as Ahsoka’s hands held her face, the latter concentrating on the bruises, rebuilding the blood vessels under her skin.

“How’s that?” asked Ahsoka.

Studying her reflection in the navigation screen, Barriss replied, “Nicely done!”

“Don’t patronize me, Barriss,” Ahsoka said as she walked away.

About to object, Barriss decided to let the comment go.

“Do you think they really weren’t working together like Red claimed?” Ahsoka asked.

“Unclear. They were both definitely imperial, however if they were close allies their attack was bizarrely uncoordinated. Save for Red moving Magenta out of the way while she was unconscious, and their fleeing aboard that ship, they made no effort to assist each other...” Barriss said, replaying the fight in her mind.

“The droid, Proxy, was definitely Red’s. It could fight with lightsabers and had some impressive holographic and tractor beam tech built in,” said Ahsoka. “How do you think they found us?”

“I suspect it was the death of one Governor Prodric. I elicited his assistance in my analysis of Drescran,” Barriss said, the mind of an experienced intelligence agent connecting disparate information. “And Magenta was the one shadowing me when infiltrating his home.”

“What about Red? If we assume they weren’t cooperating, he’d need to have found his own way to track us down.”

“Of that, I’m uncertain. It would be wise if we- Are those _teeth marks_?” Barriss said incredulously, gesturing to the not-yet-faded indentations on Ahsoka’s lekku.

“Magenta fights dirty,” Ahsoka replied, gently massaging the sore spots, thinking about how to outmaneuver their new enemies. "What do you think they'll try next?"

* * *

Leaning against the wall, Galen hobbled along on one leg towards the medical station, setting himself down on the table, storage cabinets opened by his will as he summoned equipment to himself. The medical scanner connected to a holoprojector next to him, offering a look at his horrendously broken shin. Pulling up his trouser leg, Galen winced at the bruised, misshapen flesh, and used the Force to set the fractured bone splinters back into place. Gritting his teeth and groaning in pain as he worked, skin and muscle twitching as the bones moved underneath and Galen tracked the fragments’ positions with the hologram, they were soon realigned. The indescribable agony he’d put himself in by personally rearranging his damaged leg was reduced to a more tolerable level of agony, then he got the leg in a brace to keep it in position while it healed properly, and finally let out a loud sigh of relief.

The bacta serum injection he shot into his shin quickly got to work accelerating his already enhanced healing processes, Galen sighing a few times more as the pain reduced further, though he wished he’d had more time to inspect the syringe. If Proxy had figured out the locker combination and slipped nerve toxins into the bacta supply again, Galen was going to be very angry at the droid. Now was _not the time_.

As a precaution, Galen levitated an antidote kit out from one of the cabinets and held it close to his chest in case he needed it, then considered what else he needed to do now that his leg was healing. Seeing his reflection in the kit's surface, Galen realized for the first time how one-sided that fight had really been and how many hits he’d taken, as half his face red and purple with bruises. Minutes ago, he’d felt the boundless power of the dark side coursing within him. Now he only felt sore. Reaching up to poke at the damaged flesh, Galen saw his hands had their share of bruises as well. The last time he’d been beaten this severely was years ago during training.

Laying here in his ship, the magnitude and blunt reality of what happened was starting to sink in.

_I lost._

Now that he was and out of danger, his mind helpfully informed him of future danger. Ahsoka Tano had escaped, and Galen had no idea how he was going to locate her again after following what were some pretty flimsy leads the first time, or how he would capture her when her strength during their first fight proved even worse than his anticipated worst case scenario. Galen leaned back and closed his eyes, trying to think of something.

Then his eyes lurched back open what the doors slid apart and that other assassin was standing there, blaster in hand.

“Put your hands up, _now_ , or I’ll burn them off your wrists,” she demanded, and Galen cautiously complied, raising his hands despite the pain all over his arms, wincing as the antidote kit slid into his lap and pressed down on more bruises, then slipped off and loudly clattered to the floor. The damage to his shoulder was really being felt, and after Barriss berating him, Galen couldn’t stop thinking about it. “Who are you?”

“I’m an imperial inquisitor,” Galen replied. Lying wasn’t something he often needed to do, but claiming inquisitor status was an idea he’d thought about years ago in case he was in this exact situation. No one in the Empire could be allowed to know of his true role, or the Emperor would retaliate against Lord Vader's twisting of the Rule of Two.

“ _Which_ inquisitor?”

“Fifth Brother,” said Galen, studying her impassively, wondering whether he should kill her or not. Even in this state, he could handle someone with a blaster, especially since his new companion wasn’t in much better condition than he was, sporting a nasty bruise on her left temple, and looking rather ruffled all over.

The agent’s finger tightened around the trigger. It seemed she wasn’t convinced. “I’ve seen the Fifth Brother. You’re not him,” she said, and Galen couldn’t be sure whether she was telling the truth or calling his bluff, finding her difficult to read.

_You’re going to report everything that happens and blow my cover, I can see that already._

“The previous one was killed on Malachor several days ago. There was an opening, I was chosen to fill it, and now I’m supposed to correct his failure by capturing Ahsoka Tano and proving I deserve the position,” Galen said confidently, and it seemed to be working. “Who are you?”

“I’m an agent of the Imperial Security Bureau,” she said.

_Should I kill her right now... or not... hm..._

It would be better to just kill her. Rip the blaster out of her hand with the Force, follow that up with a lightsaber throw through her chest, dump the body out the airlock, it would be easy.

“ _Try it_ ,” she growled, making Galen to stop spacing out and focus more on her unfathomably intense scowl, jerking back very slightly on the examination table. Whoever she was, she was definitely Force-sensitive, too, to sense his intentions like that. “See what happens.”

Recalling the last stretch of the fight in his mind, certain things were clicking. This agent had not only located Ahsoka as Galen had, and remained undetected by both the Jedi and himself, she was the one who’d injured Ahsoka’s arm before being knocked out. Far from making her a powerhouse, those weren’t feats to scoff at, either, and Galen was now leaning very hard towards ‘don’t kill her’.

“This is yours, right?” he asked, holding up his guest’s lightsaber. It leapt across the room to her hand, then she turned the saber on for a few seconds to confirm it was still functioning. “If you’re trying to stop those Jedi, I am, too. What’s your name?”

“It’s Arica,” she said.

Thinking through the situation, Arica now believed he was an inquisitor, which meant he didn’t necessarily need to kill her to preserve secrecy, inquisitors and intelligence operatives often being forced to cooperate. It was advisable to kill her, but not required, or appropriate. She could’ve flown off with his ship and left him to be captured by the Jedi. Instead she saved him. Execution would be an undeserved repayment.

“If you give me coordinates of your ship or an ISB facility, I will gladly drop you off and continue my mission,” Galen said.

“You want to hunt down those two rebels, I take it? You know, your hunt may go easier with a tracker,” Arica said, holding a tracking receiver up, glowing green light indicating it was receiving a signal, and Galen stared at it, fixated, knowing it was his best shot at correcting his failure.

Aside from that, finding Ahsoka on Moseprous had been a struggle, yet somehow Arica had shown up on her own, implying she had some other means of figuring out where Ahsoka would be. Those were skills he desperately needed if he wanted to complete this mission. Cooperation with others had never been necessary, now it absolutely was, and the alternative was to disappoint Darth Vader.

“You need my help,” Arica replied. It was an arrogant claim, and she was right.

He really should just kill her. Use the Force to rip the tracker and her blaster away, then Force choke her. Perhaps bash her head against the wall a few times in the process to keep her disoriented. If he did that, and it turned out that tracker required a passcode or had some other security measure, he was going to feel very stupid.

“If you try to take on Ahsoka Tano and Barriss Offee by yourself, you’ll fail,” Galen said calmly, eyes following the tracker as Arica tauntingly waved it in front of him, considering how easily he could snatch it with telekinesis of his own. “Those rebels you’re hunting are Jedi, and inquisitor missions take priority over the interests of the ISB.”

* * *

Keeping her blaster raised, Mara sized up her host. Particularly the way his eyes went wide when she’d shown him the tracker.

 _You want this, don’t you?_ she mused. As long as she had the path to the Jedi, she could control the situation.

In addition to providing useful backup, this inquisitor had clearly known who both of her targets were before the confrontation, he’d been able to track them down, and he had a ship with better sensor cloaking than any she’d flown.

“It hardly matters whose mission takes priority. You couldn’t defeat them both,” Mara continued, choosing to call her new ally ‘Fifth’ as an abbreviation. It was so creepy they called each other ‘Brother’ and ‘Sister’. Mara didn’t have, need, or want any family, and certainly wouldn’t address any of those freaks as such.

“I’m not the only one,” Fifth said back, eyes leaving the tracker and sweeping over her various bruises, making Mara bristle at the comment. Mind going back to the encounter with the rebels, Mara grudgingly accepted she would need help. 

"Tell me how you found the Jedi," said Fifth. “Showing up at the same time was an odd coincidence.”

“‘Coincidence’ nothing, I’d been lying in wait for them for days, following rebel intelligence activity. Then you showed up practically tore their hideout from the ground. Those two Jedi are major players in the Rebellion, not typical fugitives from imperial law, and instead of blasting them apart with this ship’s laser cannons, I rescued _you_. If they get away to wreak more havoc, that’s on _you_ ,” Mara said, making the inquisitor’s eyes go wide for a second before narrowing into a scowl matching hers.

“If I wasn’t there, you’d have been captured and the Jedi would’ve escaped anyway,” Fifth replied, having none of it. "What do you want, exactly?"

"To capture those two Jedi and turn them over to be interrogated so the Rebellion's intelligence network can be torn apart from the top down," Mara replied casually.

"I only need to capture the Togruta, Ahsoka Tano. My orders are very specific, she’s my only concern.”

“Then I'm supposed to take Barriss Offee or whomever back, split the prize between us?” Mara reluctantly said. Tano was bad enough. The thought of again facing Offee, that dainty little Mirialan, made Mara’s stomach turn, her sense for danger screaming at her not to try it.

“Yes. You return to your superiors with Barriss Offee, I take Ahsoka Tano back to mine,” Fifth said. “If your superiors have a problem with that, they can take it up with Lord Vader.”

Considering the reality behind this possible arrangement, knowing Vader would certainly concede to any command made by the Emperor, Mara was satisfied and replied, “Agreed,” concealing her relief at the deal, knowing she had absolutely no chance against those two Jedi by herself.

“Thank you for saving me,” Fifth unexpectedly said.

“...Likewise,” Mara replied, grudgingly holstering the blaster. "I need to return to my own ship, and connect the tracker to my navcomputer. It won't work otherwise."

“Proxy will assist you with flying the _Shadow,”_ Fifth said, lying back on the medical bed. 

“Proxy?” Mara asked, turning around and jumping when she saw a duplicate of herself standing next to her, and drew her blaster again in response.

“Greetings, Arica,” said what Mara assumed was Proxy, that droid she’d dragged in, speaking with her voice. As the image of herself stared at Mara, it flickered and adjusted to become more detailed, coloration of her green eyes adjusting as individual freckles popped up on her face, all accompanied by a pleasant smile while leaning uncomfortably close to study the real Mara.

“What is this thing?” she said, eyeing this strange holographic recreation suspiciously.

“This is Proxy, a droid who helps me train,” Fifth said. “Proxy, are you feeling okay?”

“I require repairs, master. Despite my numerous redundancies and automatic repair systems, Ahsoka Tano was unexpectedly vicious. I am sev- seve- sev- severely damaged!” stuttered the smiling Proxy-Mara, her holographic visage sporadically flickering, then disappearing completely when Proxy’s left forearm disconnected, held on by a single wire for a moment, which then snapped off and crashed to the floor, revealing the skeletal droid beneath. The simple humanoid design and big round eyes weren’t fooling Mara into thinking it was for etiquette and protocol.

“Proxy, help Arica with flying the ship, I'll start repairing you after that,” said Fifth.

“What will you be doing?” asked Mara.

The inquisitor wearily stared into space for a moment, glanced down at his leg brace, along with his other injuries, called another syringe of bacta to hand, and injected himself with it.

“I’m going to need a few more minutes.”

* * *

Over the years, the _Eclipse_ had gradually accumulated new equipment turning it from a simple light freighter to a mobile counterintelligence command post. Data drives, an upgraded computer core, encryption systems, long-distance transmitter/receivers, and its increasingly complex holographic camouflage system. The remainder of the space was packed with junk, to give the appearance to sensor probes of an ordinary freighter moving cargo, a static-damped ship being too obvious. Including various methods of disguising the ship and making contact with the wider Rebellion, the ship had the additional benefit of an absurdly overpowered security force in the droidekas, who were also equipped with their own advanced sensors with which they could scan for any electronic listening devices.

It wasn’t long before this security force alerted Ahsoka to the presence of a tracking device aboard the ship.

“Found it!” Ahsoka yelled as she opened up the internal access panel for the _Eclipse’s_ starboard landing gear and pointed out a tracking device clipped to one of the power cables. One of those assassin’s must have attached it, probably Magenta. Red went directly for Ahsoka, Magenta had time to skulk around unnoticed.

“You disable that tracker, I’ll redirect our hyperspace route- Wait, don’t disable it yet, we’ll eject it into interstellar space and allow it to continue transmitting after moving sufficiently off-course,” Barriss said with her and Ahsoka heading towards the cockpit. “Our destination is still far enough away that if we take an erratic path, then abandon the tracker, they won’t know with confidence where we were going even though they had our original vector.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right,” Ahsoka said in a confident manner that would’ve hid her uncertainty from anyone who didn’t spend as much time with her as Barriss.

“What’s the problem?” Barriss asked, looking up at Ahsoka from the navigation screen.

“Nothing,” Ahsoka said unconvincingly.

“Ahsoka, if you have a better alternative, _tell me_ ,” Barriss said urgently. As they were speeding towards a planet to continue acts of rebellion, without a very wide grace period for making evasive maneuvers and then getting back on course, time was something of an issue.

“Your plan is good, keep plotting that course.”

“Ahsoka...”

This was a loop the two of them occasionally needed to break themselves out of. One would suggest an idea, the second woman would have a concern but not say anything out of trust the first knew what she was doing, the first would notice the second’s ineffective attempt to hide her discomfort and try to talk about whatever the problem was because she trusted her and wanted to hear her opinion.

“What if we let the tracker remain active all the way to Tsaclyta?” asked Ahsoka. “Like you said before, those weren’t normal assassins. They were Force users. It may be better to let them know where we’re going.”

“And lure them into a trap,” Barriss finished with a nod. It would be nice to know who those two were, and how they’d found her and Ahsoka the first time. “While I’m confident we could defeat them again with additional preparation, we still have to worry about them bringing an imperial fleet down on us.”

“They already came at us alone once,” said Ahsoka.

“That was before we had established our ability to protect ourselves,” said Barriss.

“They were sent by Vader. They know we're Fulcrum. They knew who we were, and still came without any purge troopers or backup inquisitors, which tells me they don’t have confidence in their allies. Or they were trying to eliminate us quietly,” said Ahsoka.

“What about the rebels on Tsaclyta? We would be knowingly leading imperial agents towards them.”

“The assassins managed to find us once already without a tracker. I want to know how, if it was the Force, or if there’s an information leak somewhere. If they manage the same trick again, they might catch us unaware when we’re meeting with another cell. This way, we at least know they’re coming. We’ll give descriptions and warnings to the cell, let them help us if they can.”

“Very well,” Barriss said, finding the reasons sound and cancelling her modified hyperspace route. “The tracker shall remain where it sits.”

They were taking an enormous risk leaving the tracker in place, while not doing so presented an equal long-term risk. This way, the threat was predictable compared to the uncertainty in leaving those assassins free to pursue and strike at unexpected or disastrous moments.

With that finally resolved, the pair got back to work, somewhat tense with the new awareness they were being followed for the entirety of the trip, regardless of it being part of their own plan.

“I forgot to ask, did your mission at least go well?” Ahsoka asked, hoping for some good news.

“Yes. I completed my goal without incident,” said Barriss, eager as Ahsoka was to find something else to discuss. “Senatorial politics will soon become quite interesting.”

* * *

The _Rogue Shadow_ docked with the nondescript bulk freighter hanging in space at the outer edge of Moseprous’ orbit, its owner climbing up the ladder into her ship. Once aboard, she turned around and looked down at Galen, hand on the control panel and making it clear he was not coming aboard.

“You know, you got a good look at the inside of my ship. It’s only fair I check out yours,” said Galen, who was curious as to what Arica might be hiding from him.

“I’m not acting ‘fair’, and the only reason I was in this piece of junk was to save your life,” Arica said.

“And _your_ life,” Galen added grumpily. "What exactly is stopping you from disconnecting your ship and flying off without me?"

"Besides the interrelated facts that I need to catch those Jedi, and am not suicidal enough to fight them alone?"

"So you _do_ need help," Galen noted, Arica silently frowning down at him as she pressed the button to close the airlock and departed.

A moment later, after Galen cut a square through the metal above him with his saber, Arica stormed back to the airlock and stared down at him again in horror and anger past the ragged edges of red-hot durasteel.

"And how _exactly_ are we going to disconnect the ships now without spacing us both?" she hissed.

"The _Shadow's_ airlock can still seal, and I've got some field emitters that can keep the air from escaping yours. I'll lend them to you whenever we depart," Galen said, matching Arica's glare as he closed the airlock above him and walked off to the cockpit, readying the _Shadow's_ navcomputer and synchronizing it with the freighter's. After a long moment, Arica taking an unusual amount of time to pull the lever, both ships were in hyperspace. That ISB agent wasn't going anywhere.

Arica didn’t seem like a serious threat. She believed the lie that he was an inquisitor, though Galen didn’t completely believe Arica’s story. Force-sensitives in the Bureau? It was possible, but there was no way such agents could exist without Emperor Palpatine being aware of it, and he would have other uses for them.

The more pressing concern Galen was facing was how soon he should contact his master. Obviously, he didn’t want to report failure. His hands shook as he thought about how badly this conversation could go.

They were on the Jedi’s trail. If Galen could capture Ahsoka quickly enough, Lord Vader would never need to know about this setback. Galen would have completed his mission perfectly. Hopefully, he was preoccupied with some other time-consuming responsibility, then Galen could avoid this discussion, get on with his work, and have the job done before his master could establish communication again. That would be ideal. That was all that mattered.

What if Vader contacted him earlier, asked what was taking so long, and Galen reported that he’d failed? That he’d failed and tried to hide it?

Galen touched he hand to his throat, then drew it away quickly as he got out of the chair and went to go repair Proxy, finding relief in the distraction.

“Ahsoka really got you good, huh?” Galen asked as he got to work replacing Proxy’s elbow joint with one that hadn’t been twisted into an amorphous scrap of metal, parts sprawled across the training room floor as he unpacked a new crate of droid components. Proxy also had a new face plate at the ready, his previous one having been rendered concave.

“Indeed, master. I miscalculated Ahsoka Tano’s reaction to one of my modules,” Proxy explained.

“Miscalculated how?”

“I took the form of Anakin Skywalker expecting Ahsoka Tano to involuntarily hold back her strength when fighting the image of her former master. Instead, she proceeded to scream with anger and attacked me relentlessly,” said Proxy, as Galen wondered why she would react that way to her master. He was also surprised Proxy possessed a Skywalker module, he’d never used it before.

“What’s wrong, Proxy?”

“Oh, master,” Proxy lamented. “Your injuries during the fight with the Jedi would’ve been the perfect opportunity to kill you. I had also hoped to use my Anakin Skywalker module for an additional surprise and increase my odds of success. Instead, I was disabled well beforehand, and now you know about the hidden module.”

“I’m sure you’ll get another chance someday. I can only get lucky so many times,” Galen said with as much courtesy as he could manage, not doubting for a moment Proxy had a few other hidden tricks left, and acting like he was out of ideas was another of the droid’s favored tactics. Soldering the last wires of Proxy’s arm into place, Galen deemed him fit for combat again. Best to keep Proxy as dangerous and challenging as possible, otherwise he couldn’t help Galen get stronger.

“Master, I am very concerned for you. Your fight against Ahsoka Tano left you in the worst condition I have ever seen,” Proxy said as Galen took a breath to prepare himself for the soreness in his legs as he stood up from the workbench. “If she kills you, I will never be able to fulfill my primary programming.”

“Proxy, I _promise_ I won’t let anyone else kill me before you can. I’d never let my friend down like that,” Galen replied, which seemed to mollify the droid. “Did you notice anything during the fight I can use against her? Weaknesses, effective tactics?”

“Her reaction to the appearance of her master was highly abnormal,” noted Proxy. “An intense emotional response would be expected, but not the ferocity she demonstrated. I believe you should investigate Skywalker further. Some events transpired which appears to have caused Ahsoka Tano to despise her master.”

The files on Ahsoka which Lord Vader provided didn’t mention Anakin Skywalker aside from simply listing him as her master, though standard imperial documents could probably tell him more about specific missions they undertook. Galen nodded as he finished fixing his friend, considering all the ways to use hatred to his advantage.

* * *

Sitting in the pilot's chair, holding a fourth freeze pack to her head, Mara carefully considered everything she knew about her new ally. He claimed to be an inquisitor, which fit with his attack on those two Jedi. Killing Jedi was the inquisitors’ whole job. His equipment and ship were clearly imperial design. He’d also helped her because she had also been fighting the Jedi. His story made sense, and there technically wasn’t any reason not to work with him.

Grudgingly, Mara once again couldn’t ignore the fact she could barely handle one of those Jedi, much less both of them, especially now that they knew she was after them and she’d lost the element of surprise.

Fulcrum, whichever one of them was responsible, she’d been ahead of Mara at every step, and the Emperor’s Hand remained unclear as to how, exactly, this had happened. Was Drescran a traitor, or was he not? If not, was Fulcrum setting him up? Were Mara’s own actions feeding into Fulcrum’s plans to smear the senator? Did Fulcrum anticipate her arrival after she’d executed Governor Prodric? Was all of this an elaborate setup?

Then there was the challenge of a physical confrontation. Against Tano, she got some solid hits in before being crushed regardless. Against Offee, Mara felt her chances were even worse.

On her wrist link, Mara took a moment to recall which button she should press. The rebels were on the move, and she didn’t have time to go pick up her ship from the surface of Moseprous. It didn’t have anything important to her in it, save for some low-level information, which was all destroyed when she pressed the button to remotely trigger a complete computer wipe of the vessel. Whoever ended up with it after being removed because she stopped paying landing fees could take it, she could always get a new one and this mission was too important to delay.

Mara’s forehead scrunched up in annoyance as she read Ahsoka Tano’s file. If Fulcrum had turned out to be some nobody from a tenth-rate planet who’d become active during the Empire’s reign, that would’ve been one thing. Imperial Intelligence and the ISB all had access to files on the Jedi, yet after seventeen years it seemed none of them had been able to piece together that perhaps Fulcrum _was the Jedi fugitive with the Fulcrum symbol literally all over her forehead_.

When all else failed, Mara could always count on other people being too incompetent to accomplish anything. Pausing for a moment, the undercurrent of anger within her subsided and she took a few relaxed breaths. This was why the Emperor found Mara so useful. She felt relief as she reminded herself that among the throngs of incompetent supporters, she stood above them and was still useful. Still useful.

Chuckling wearily to herself, Mara was placated by with the knowledge she definitely had a place in this galaxy if she was the only person competent enough to figure this out. True, she hadn’t figured it out on her own either, but she’d been on the job for a couple of days and in that time she’d successfully figured out where Fulcrum would be going and was presently tracking her. With some unexpected assistance, of course.

There was something about this situation Mara didn’t like. Other than the obvious issue that she was floundering in her mission for the first time she could remember, she required help from one of Vader’s attack hounds. Everything about Fifth, it reeked of Vader... which was perfectly consistent with what she’d been told. Her ally claimed to be an inquisitor, who were Vader’s servants, so at first glance this made sense.

Then the more she thought about it, the more discrepancies appeared.

That ship below, connected to her own, was a modified transport with a cloaking device. The inquisitors didn’t use stealth, they had their own distinctive TIE fighters and loved to commandeer local garrisons for their purposes. That droid, Proxy, wasn’t standard equipment for them, and neither was that patchwork lightsaber.

Mara cleared her mind of extraneous thought and emotion, knowing what she intended to do and moving on muscle memory, getting from her terminal and down into the _Rogue Shadow_ without a single ripple of thought. Hearing Fifth at work in what she presumed was his quarters, Mara backed away and to the starboard side of the ship into what looked like a training room, with an unattended computer terminal, and took a look at what kind of information was of interest to her new inquisitor friend. What she found was an impressive library of documents related to various Force-using traditions. Clearly her gracious host wasn’t used to company, otherwise the computer would at least have password protection. Then there were the recent holonet searches he’d done in the past hour.

_Shoulder joint relocation correct procedure_

_Single-person shoulder relocation procedure_

_Single-person shoulder relocation procedure diagram_

_Human-Togruta average strength comparison_

_Human-Togruta peak strength comparison_

_Togruta physical weak points_

_Mirialan tattoo meanings_

_Togruta lekku function_

_Togruta horn function_

_Togruta horn name_

_Togruta montral function_

_Togruta difference between echolocation and hearing_

_Do Togruta montrals function as ears_

_Do Togruta have ears_

_Togruta ear location_

_Togruta ear anatomy_

_WHERE ARE TOGRUTA EARS_

Well, that wasn’t anything she should be too concerned about.

 _Wait a second, where_ are _Togruta ears located?_ Mara wondered curiously as she brought up the results from those searches.

“Is there something I can help you with, Arica?” a now fully-repaired Proxy asked as he was again standing behind Mara, only a few centimeters away, interrupting her research and leaving her ignorant of the truth behind Togruta hearing.

 _“GAH,_ no, just taking a look at the Jedi files, comparing it with what I have access to,” she replied, pressing keys and scrolling through whatever files popped up. "I don't suppose you have any useful information of your own?"

"Any information useful to your mission will be stored in the computer core," said Proxy. "My only unique files are images of my time with the master."

“You have... what, family holos?” asked Mara, bewildered by the chipper droid's response.

“Indeed, I have recorded many moments of our time together!” Proxy said enthusiastically, plugging his hand into the console before Mara could express her apathy and displaying a picture of a young boy with mussed up black hair.

“Why is his hair like that?” asked Mara, noting the ugly, unusually haphazard cut.

“The master quickly learned not to allow me to hold cutting implements near his head, and required practice performing such tasks himself,” Proxy said as he moved on. That certainly explained the buzz cut.

The next holo showed a young Fifth with a wide smile, missing some baby teeth, holding up a severed droid arm. “This was the first time the master successfully dismembered me in a sparring match!”

The image changed to Fifth lying in bed, smirking and one eye open. “That was when the master tricked me into attacking when I mistakenly believed he was asleep. He managed to seal me inside of a cargo container for three days until I escaped.”

The next image was an excited boy raising his hands as thermal detonators were pitched at him. “That was training to use the Force for telekinetic catch and return of explosives. Low-yield, of course. We _were_ indoors, after all.”

The next image showed a smiling adolescent raising his lightsaber. “This was when the master finally completed his Form III lightsaber training, defeating my designated combat module with it. It was a big day,” Proxy said with a tone that sounded like he’d be crying if the droid possessed tear ducts.

“You really like him, don’t you? Fifth isn’t just your master, he’s your friend,” said Mara.

“Of course. We are the best of friends!”

“Then why do you try to kill him? You aren’t sparring in a friendly way, you actually want him dead,” noted Mara.

“Of course I desire to terminate the master. That is my primary programming.”

“You can’t kill someone and still be their friend,” Mara plainly stated.

The droid’s head twitched slightly. “I do not understand.”

“If Fifth dies, then he can’t be your friend. Because he won’t be alive. So he can’t be anything except for a corpse,” Mara said bluntly, taking a cautious step away from Proxy. Someone had either programmed this droid very poorly, or done too good a job of it, and she wanted to be ready if he glitched out.

The droid didn’t move for several seconds, seemingly stuck on something that locked up his joints. The lights of his photoreceptors flickered, and Mara thought she heard something in his head spark.

“Ah, Arica, I did not notice you come in,” Proxy said once he began moving again. “You must teach me how you move so quietly. Then perhaps I could finally surprise and terminate the master.”

“Yes... Perhaps another time,” Mara said cautiously, slinking away from the droid and towards the door, silently climbing back up into her ship.

_What the hell what the hell what the hell..._

Despite the implications of Proxy’s programming, Mara paused and considered how to use it. Killing her inquisitor ally could be necessary following the completion of the mission, and having a droid dedicated to his death on her side opened up some possibilities.

Maybe she’d end up teaching Proxy something after all.

* * *

With the two assassins following behind them, Barriss was consulting the historical texts she’d salvaged over the years, naturally also stored in encrypted backup drives spread around the galaxy, and considering how prior Sith philosophy could answer her question.

If he were so inclined, how and why would Emperor Palpatine violate the Rule of Two?

The inquisitors, at least those she and Ahsoka had encountered, were former Jedi. Until recently, Barriss believed Palpatine’s complete hatred of the Jedi Order precluded him from taking one as an apprentice, which was corroborated by Count Dooku’s ultimate expendability, showing he was never meant to endure as a true heir. Then it was revealed his current apprentice was a former Jedi as well, which called other assumptions into question.

Those assassins didn’t wield the same distinct circular sabers as the inquisitors. One of them didn’t even have a red blade. They must have been sent by Skywalker, or the Emperor, or both, but how did they fit into things? Were they students? Pawns? Where did they come from, and were there more like them?

These texts weren’t especially helpful, most being written by Jedi and so biased as a result they often stopped providing accurate information.

Sith were not unwilling to use loopholes. The inquisitors were an obvious example, expendable like Maul and Dooku were. Then there was additional precedent with Dooku’s tutelage of Asajj Ventress. There was still something different about these two. Particularly, Red was far stronger than any inquisitor encountered previously, implying Sith training and genuine intent to bring him up to that level of strength. Magenta wasn’t as powerful, clearly specialized as an infiltrator with a wider range of weaponry, and in hindsight Barriss was certain she was the source of that eerie feeling before the battle between the four. Barriss never felt anything quite like it, because of how abnormally little there was to feel, very careful clouding of emotions and thought. If they needed to be quantitative, Ahsoka said she’d place Magenta in the upper ranks of the inquisitors.

Their young ages were what preoccupied Barriss the most. This was a time she’d long feared was coming.

Prior to the rise of the Empire, there had been thousands of Jedi Knights in the galaxy. Without the Jedi recruiting more as children, Force-sensitives born to new generations would grow up under the Palpatine’s rule. Thousands of them, scattered, alone, unable to protect themselves, their families unaware and unprepared for the attention they would attract. Now, they were indeed grown, and had become servants of the dark side, and their numbers would only increase the longer Palpatine reigned.

* * *

Late at night, down in the middle levels of Coruscant, Jaden Korr impatiently twisted her purple lekku.

Despite hating to leave her alone, there wasn’t anyone to call on and look after her, and Uncle Orn didn’t have any employment more stable or better paying than the courier work that took him around the Core. Being fourteen years old now, Jaden could at least be trusted to take care of herself, and she had things to occupy her time with.

Shutting all the blinds, keeping out the bright city lights as well as unwanted attention, Jaden disabled her pad’s holonet connection, and inserted a data drive she’d kept separate, hidden in the recess of a hole in the wall.

Fidgeting with even greater anticipation now, Jaden began reading an outlawed history of the Great Hyperspace war, one focusing on the role of the Jedi, grateful to her uncle for bringing her these texts and wondering how he kept acquiring blacklisted documents like this. His explanation was that traveling around took him to libraries and other data repositories which weren’t as thoroughly wiped clean of data on the Jedi, but Jaden suspected he was going more out of his way to bring her these books than he would admit.

In the front room of the apartment, Jaden heard the door open, and saw the lights switch on. She wasn’t expecting Uncle Orn to be back so soon, going all the way to Tebetrus and back. Quietly removing the data card and returning it to the hiding spot with the others, Jaden grabbed the twisted greenputt club she kept next to her bed and peeked through the door.

Standing there was a tall woman clad entirely in black armor, including a cape, staring at Jaden through the red visor of her helmet, holding her uncle’s apartment key and looking completely out of place in Jaden's small yet tidy apartment.

“You must be Jaden. I am the Fourth Sister, and I've been hearing _so_ many interesting things about you,” the woman said pleasantly, stepping closer and chuckling as she noticed the broken sporting equipment Jaden was prepared to fight a burglar with. “Interesting. What exactly do you think that will-”

Then Jaden screamed in terror as she swung the club up at the woman's head, successfully landing a solid swing that dented one of the large, angular earpieces on the side of the helmet and making her lean on the door frame for support. Despite that unexpected success, Jaden suddenly, instinctively felt the need to run, not waiting for the Fourth Sister to turn back and face her.

Rushing out through the front door, Jaden was faced with a row of black-armored troopers, dropships shining spotlights down at her, bystanders in the distance watching briefly before they realized how serious the situation was and walked in the opposite direction. As Jaden froze, lacking anywhere to run, the troopers raised their rifles, and she was inexplicably raised into the air, unable to run even if she had a path. A bright red glow came up from behind her, the Fourth Sister approaching with an active lightsaber and an outstretched hand, and Jaden realized she was witnessing her first in-person use of the Force, coming to regret several of her recent decisions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaden Korr is the customizable player character of Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, the fourth entry in the Dark Forces saga, a video game series with one of the most confusing naming systems ever. The games go “Dark Forces”-> “Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight” -> “Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast” -> “Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy”. Waht. 
> 
> The game’s plot was not very complex, nor was the character, but Jaden has a special place in my heart as playing Academy for the very first time a few years ago made me want to be a Jedi for the first time since I was a little kid. Probably has something to do with her becoming a member of Luke’s New Jedi Order. The cool Legends one, not the one that was wiped out off-screen by a 24-year-old emo teenager. Jaden could be different species before they settled on a human male canonical version for some stupid reason. I went with “purple Twi’lek” as her appearance here, since the female Twi’lek is the default selection in the game’s character creator, that species seems to be a popular choice for Jaden among fans, and the color will help her stand out chromatically. 
> 
> One of the interesting things I realized about Proxy while thinking about how to portray him is that the comparison with C-3PO is obvious, but since Vader implicitly had a role in designing and programming him, he may _literally_ be part C-3PO. Much of the same programming is there. Proxy was one of my favorite things about the game, and a good look at Galen's upbringing. His only friend is constantly out to kill him, but they are still very much friends, so he recontextualized the attempts on his life as something akin to an ongoing prank war.
> 
> I admit I've been struggling a little with writing Mara. I thought it would be easy, seeing as she's one of my favorite Legends characters, and finally having her interact with other characters this chapter helped me realize what wasn't working: I needed to accept she's a bad person. I adored her in the post-Endor period when she was at her lowest and realizing how pathetic and empty her entire life had been during the Empire. Right now, she's an enforcer for a fascist dictatorship, and kind of a jerk. I still love her, but Mara Jade is arrogant, abrasive, and generally unpleasant to interact with at this point in her life, so that's what I'm leaning into.


	10. You Kids Better Play Nice

Breathing heavily as she hung from the bar in her quarters, Mara finished her last set of chin touches. Dropping down to the floor, feeling the strength of her arms and strained muscles, she felt momentary triumph followed by anger at herself when it dawned on her what a completely idiotic waste of time these exercises were.

Safe in her ship, she could still see flashes of violet from Offee’s lightning, feel the strength behind Tano’s sabers. Pumping her arms in the days before their next encounter wasn’t going to make up that difference in power.

After getting cleaned up and with fresh clothes, Mara ceased the useless thoughts as her sense of priorities asserted itself, drawing her to her communication terminal.

Her presence was expected.

Activating the comm and kneeling down, angrier still for not being able to report success as she’d wanted, Mara tensed upon seeing the Emperor’s kindly face appear before her. Right now she should be delivering a terrorist leader to Imperial Intelligence. Instead she was delayed.

“Ah, there you are, young Mara,” her Emperor began pleasantly. “I was beginning to grow concerned for you.”

“My master, I bring news,” Mara said. “The head of the Fulcrum network isn’t merely a single high-ranking rebel agent. It’s controlled by two surviving Jedi: Ahsoka Tano and Barriss Offee.”

“You’ve done well to inform me, child,” the Emperor said, to Mara’s relief. She hated contacting her master with anything other than to report successfully completed missions, not wanting to waste the time of the most powerful person in the galaxy. But she knew how he despised the Jedi for their conduct under the Republic, and it was good to keep him appraised. “You have their location?”

“They’ve fled their temporary base of operations on Moseprous, but I placed a tracking device on their ship.”

“Moseprous,” the Emperor said quietly. “Do you believe they were in contact with that world’s senator?”

“Possibly, though I’m not certain,” said Mara, wondering what developments may have occurred since her depature, unsure how to report on what she'd seen. “Once the Jedi have left hyperspace, I’ll know their destination and will move to apprehend them.”

“You intend to deal with them yourself?” he said curiously.

“That was the mission you gave me,” said Mara. She hadn’t failed a mission yet, she wasn’t about to start now.

“I am fortunate to have an agent so eager and hardworking as you,” the Emperor said with a slight smile. “So many others have disappointed me recently, taking on tasks beyond their abilities...”

“I will not fail you,” Mara said adamantly.

“Defeating two Jedi is a difficult feat, especially for someone so young,” said the Emperor, thinking for a moment. Then his smile grew larger. “Very well, child. I shall leave this matter to you. I look forward to hearing of your success.”

“Yes, my master,” Mara finished, as the Emperor ended his transmission. The situation with Drescran could be resolved later. In all cases, Fulcrum was to blame, and Mara would make that clear in the eyes of her Emperor.

Assuming she could actually succeed, and now that she was alone again, without the need to maintain confidence, doubts were creeping into Mara's mind. Running her fingers back through her hair, she considered the situation. 

The Togruta’s strength was obvious. She was a warrior, no doubt there. Definitely more than Mara could take in a fair fight, which was were her compliment of long-range blasters, explosives, poisons, and combat assistance droids came in. The Mirialan, though... Mara was realizing that their brief confrontation had ended because Offee never had any intention of killing her, or Fifth. Provoking her into taking them seriously could be disastrous, she needed a plan this time.

* * *

As the Sith acolyte sat at the workbench in the back of the _Shadow’s_ training room, the disconnected components of Galen’s lightsaber hovered in the air, slowly drifting back together through his will while he sat in the chair, eyes closed and focusing. Emitter lens realigned, conductor connections formed a complete circuit, cylindrical casing sliding over the glowing red kyber crystal.

As the last pieces nearly moved into place, a jolt of awareness came to him through the Force, the knowledge that he was the object of someone else’s focus and Galen completely lost his hold, parts clattering across the workbench. Then behind him came the sound of mechanized breathing, growing louder with approaching footsteps. For a second he frantically tried to gather pieces up and avoid making a mess before realizing there was no time. The more distressing problem was that the injuries he’d suffered completely stiffened up his body with aches, he could hardly move his legs after sitting around for so long. Grudgingly, Galen remained in the chair and lowered his gaze as far as it would go, hoping his master hadn’t seen the bruises all over his face.

Darth Vader loomed over him, saying nothing, as Galen kept his head as low as could be. After a few tense moments of anticipation, Galen knew he was again expected to begin a report.

“My master, Ahsoka Tano has fled her most recent hideout and I am pursuing her via a tracking device aboard her vessel,” Galen said. He was about to say something along the lines of ‘Please forgive the delay,’ but he stopped himself.

_Don’t apologize, it only serves as a reminder that you failed him._

“You failed,” Vader replied with blunt irritation, the careful wording clearing having no effect, and Galen winced.

“No! I almost defeated her!” Galen told Vader, remembering not to look up or the bruises would make it even more obvious how complete a lie that was. “I was stopped due to the interference of Barriss Offee.”

After so many years of serving his master, beholding his complete mastery of the dark side, Galen had never sensed him become as furious as he was upon hearing that name. With no idea why that was Vader’s reaction, the only relief was that his rage wasn’t directed at Galen this time.

“You identified the vessel you were pursuing as one used by both rebels. You discovered their location. Yet you did not plan for the Jedi to be acting together.”

“Master, I-” Galen hesitated struggling to form the words amid the pressure around his neck, not applied with intent to choke him, only hold him in place, before forcing him to look up. “I couldn't defeat them.”

“That much is obvious,” Vader said dismissively.

“I’m tracking her down, I will fight her again,” Galen said, trying to show something resembling confidence that he could win if permitted another chance. “Ahsoka Tano was far more powerful than I could’ve prepared for. Please, do you have any counsel for fighting her?”

“Ahsoka...” Vader began, the hold released, voice for once not tinged with anger as Galen feared. “...is a survivor. She was trained well and honed by experience, able to endure any battle, the failure of the inquisitors to defeat her a testament to her power. If you are to overcome her, your determination must exceed hers. The dark side will not fail you if _you_ do not fail it first.”

“Yes, my master,” Galen said.

After a long pause, Vader continued, “You will continue in your mission to capture Ahsoka Tano. Capture the other Jedi and deliver her to me if possible, leave her alive if not. If she escapes, she will pursue you and your prisoner back to me,” Vader said, leaving Galen with one final command. “Do not fail me again.”

Vader’s holographic projection fizzled away, leaving Proxy wobbling as his programing reasserted control. Taking a few quick breaths, Galen sat in silence for a moment, his face twisting into a scowl as he held out his hand. Lightsaber components flung themselves up from the ground and haphazardly reassembled themselves, metal scraping and snapping back into place, as Galen concentrated on the dark side, fear building within him, turning to anger.

* * *

Mara found her new inquisitor friend alone in his ship’s training room, tirelessly training weights, then jumping when he noticed how close Mara had gotten. This one was more jittery than the last time she’d seen him.

“What are you _doing_?” she objected to the strain he was putting on his injured body, walking faster and nearly stumbling upon finding the middle of the room had its artificial gravity increased. Then she had to do a double-take at the size of the barbells he was holding.

“These are the largest weights I have, so I needed another way of increasing the load,” Fifth said, continuing to do side extensions.

“Yes, I gathered that. Bumping your regiment up like that is only going to damage your body, especially if you’re still healing.”

“I _need_ to be stronger than Ahsoka is,” Fifth said, ignoring the criticism.

“You’re not going to get there like this,” Mara said, seeing an opportunity to both keep her partner from injuring himself before she could get some use out of him, and to demonstrate her better training. “Do you normally train this way? Who taught you to do this? You might think it’s toughening you up, but the injuries you’re inflicting on your body will catch up with you. Bacta only goes so far.”

Ignoring her objections, Fifth set the weights down on their rack and tapped buttons on a nearby console, the gravity turning back to normal as a ring of simple holographic targets appearing, then disappearing as he swung his lightsaber through them, Mara carefully stepping back and out of the way.

“If we’re going to stop those two Jedi, I need to train. You should, too,” Fifth said.

“What kind of training did you have in mind?” asked Mara.

“Ahsoka is physically strong, stronger than a Togruta should be,” he said. “Her methods for channeling the Force towards increased physical strength go beyond what I’ve seen, but there are other techniques for doing the same.”

“Techniques which you plan to study before fighting her again,” Mara said.

“Right. I know the basics, but she’s on a whole different level,” Fifth said, sparking some thoughts from Mara.

Scaling for their heights, a pretty serious difference, Mara estimated she and Fifth were similar levels of fitness, yet it didn’t account for his abnormal strength. Quickly assessing a person’s physical abilities was a skill Mara developed and often found necessary when figuring out how to fight someone when she was young. For his size, Fifth _should not_ be as ludicrously strong as he was, especially with his counterproductive training methods. Nothing indicated it was an application of the Force, either.

“Alternatively, do you know any methods for breaking her concentration?” asked Mara.

“I prefer working to make myself stronger instead of making others weaker, but I suppose that’s a valid tactic,” remarked Fifth, starting a new sequence of lightsaber targets, getting halfway through before Mara held out her hand, attempting to hold him in place with the Force and make him listen to her. From how hard he was to move, he also seemed quite a bit heavier than normal, and Mara wasn’t sure how that was possible.

_Is he truly human?_

“Whoever taught you this, they weren’t training you very effectively, they were just punishing you,” said Mara. “ _You can’t train in this condition_. You need time to heal. Physical exertion takes energy away from your healing processes, prolonging your pain, prolonging the time needed to see any benefit. Keep putting stress on your body like that, and you’ll destroy the newly healed tissue. You’re not going to unlock some amazing new power in the few days it will take to catch up with Fulcrum, so how about you help _me_ train, and let’s talk tactics, all right?”

Grudgingly, Fifth seemed to accept she was right.

“Fine. We can start by getting your telekinesis working better,” he said, breaking her hold without difficulty as he walked over to the workbench.

“Sit down, then,” she said, but Fifth didn’t move, and Mara noted that he’d remained standing in the same spot during those little training exercises. “Can you even bend your legs?”

Stubbornly glaring at Mara, Fifth judged the distance between where he stood and the chair seat and fell back into it, aching legs still rigidly straight.

“I’d _just managed_ to stand up,” he grumbled.

“You might want to walk around. Slowly. It helps restore circulation, gets your joints working.”

“You said to _sit down_ ,” Fifth said, pushing himself up with his arms and into a standing position.

“That was before I realized how much trouble you were having,” Mara said. “I think I understand why you're pushing yourself. A bit scared of failing, are you?”

“I serve Lord Vader, like the rest of the inquisitors. He doesn’t tolerate failure,” said Fifth. That meant 'yes', giving Mara a motive to work with.

“Neither do my superiors, so it’s a good thing I’ve never failed,” Mara replied confidently, implying the degree her ally needed help.

“Then what was that fight with Ahsoka and Barriss?” asked Fifth.

Mara stared at him for a second, trying not to obviously scowl before changing the subject. “Getting up to speed on enemy techniques is good, but you need to account for both targets. You said you were sent after Tano- were you even aware Offee would be there, too?”

“I knew it was likely,” Fifth said, walking around the edges of the training room. “It wouldn’t change anything. I needed to capture Ahsoka, and didn’t have time or resources to come up with anything better. Now, I at least have some time.”

“And resources, including stun weapons,” Mara said, turning to head back to her ship. “Hold on a moment. I’ve got something you can do while... relaxing.”

Returning with an arsenal of non-lethal weapons, and their instruction manuals, Mara handed them over to her partner, who adjusted the workbench height such that he could inspect the weapons while standing, beginning with a stun pike.

Showing the control knob, Mara took him through the settings. “Lowest setting is only enough to push an opponent back, it won’t do much more than numb them for a few seconds. Medium usually won’t do serious damage, but the vibrations cause incredible pain. Maximum setting can shatter bones and cause massive hemorrhages.”

“Interesting,” Fifth said, setting the pike to medium and hitting his own forearm with it as a test, doing so too quickly for a wide-eyed Mara to ask what he was thinking.

Instead of crying out in pain at the strike, Fifth simply stared at his arm quietly. It made no sense, he was in intense pain, Mara could _feel him feeling the pain_. When hit by lower setting during her training several years earlier, even Mara cried out in agony until she learned to _evade_ , not build up a resistance to the effect.

“Yep, that hurts,” he said boredly. His arm wasn’t even trembling from the shock. It was like he was more curious at this new form of pain than anything else.

This guy couldn’t be real. He _couldn’t_ be. Mara reasoned she must’ve been seriously concussed during the first fight with Tano, and she was still lying unconscious in an underground tunnel on Moseprous imagining all of this.

 _Wake up wake up wake up wake up_ , Mara thought as she lightly slapped her own face several times, hoping to escape from this insanity.

“How often do you use this?” Fifth asked, snapping Mara back to what was, unfortunately for her, reality.

“Frequently. The stun setting is quite useful. It’s like an off button, but for people. And then if you wish to kill them later, you can slit their throats while they’re unconscious,” Mara explained, and Fifth nodded. The logic was simple enough for him. “Then you can get in close and punch them to death.”

“I usually keep to kicking for physical attacks,” said Fifth. “I don’t want to damage my hands, which would make it harder to wield my saber. Or use grips and throws.”

“Well, if you want to capture Tano alive and with a minimum of damage, this is the easiest way to succeed,” Mara said, holding out a blaster pistol with the stun setting engaged.

Fifth stared down at the weapon, brow scrunching up like he was being told to touch something foul, until finally taking it out of Mara’s hand.

“This feels wrong...” he said, awkwardly and flimsily holding the blaster as he practiced aiming it.

* * *

With some stationary holographic targets to aim at, Galen tested out the regular stun pistol, and a sonic weapon Arica called a 'shrieker', finding his aim abysmal with both.

“If you can’t get your aim right soon enough, you could leave the incapacitation part to me,” Arica said as she went through his lightsaber training program, magenta saber slashing through multicolored holographic targets spinning and orbiting around her.

Thinking to himself, Galen considered whether he should be concerned with Arica’s very unsubtle attempts to ingratiate herself with him. She was not Lord Vader, and therefore her opinion was inconsequential to him so long as this arrangement concluded with him capturing Ahsoka, and the supposed ISB agent wasn’t making progress with him.

“I’m still more powerful than you, even in this condition,” Galen warned, lamenting his injuries.

“Really? Because it seemed like Tano and Offee hurt you a lot more than they hurt me,” Arica replied.

Glowering over at her for a second, arms slumped to his sides, Galen channeled the dark side for an instant, more than enough power to knock his new ally halfway across the training room without even moving, slamming her onto her back.

“The reason I’m more hurt than you,” he began, taking a few pained, limping steps towards his partner, who was on the floor, furiously scowling up at him, “is because they knocked you out easily while I held my own.”

As Galen reached a hand down to help her up, Arica smacked his hand away with the back of hers, rolling over and clumsily getting to her feet by herself.

“You don’t have much experience fighting other Force-users, do you?” asked Galen. That push had a decent amount of power behind it, but not that much. Not enough someone with Arica’s level of skill couldn’t dampen.

“I broke Tano’s arm, which is more than you accomplished,” said Arica. “That should make fighting her a little easier next time.”

“It would,” said Galen. “If Barriss Offee wasn’t an expert healer who spent the Clone Wars healing injuries much worse than a few fractures.”

“Then what would you suggest?”

“If you want more lightsaber combat practice, Proxy could help,” suggested Galen. It seemed Arika was finding the training program quite enjoyable. Perhaps she could handle something a little more intensive.

“I am programmed with knowledge of all seven lightsaber forms,” Proxy said, now standing right behind Arica. This time Arica didn’t flinch, having evidently learned to listen for him. Having no doubt been listening to their conversation from the doorway, Proxy took the form and voice of Barriss Offee, and readied an orange lightsaber. “I would be delighted to assist you, Arica!”

“Yes. Delightful,” Arica said, raising her magenta blade.

“Be nice to her,” said Galen.

“I thought Proxy was masculine,” Arica noted.

“I go by whatever form Proxy takes,” Galen said with a slight shrug as he backed away from the impending sparring match.

“I ensured that the master knew proper etiquette and protocol regarding pronouns,” Proxy-Barriss haughtily added, her holographic skirt swaying gracefully. “Oh, I wish all of our targets were so delightfully elegant!”

Then, without warning, Proxy-Offee struck at Arica, beginning the match while she was off-balance, with her now struggling angrily to push the droid's blade away from her face.

“Gotta keep your guard up with Proxy,” Galen warned as he continued pacing.

“Bad move, droid. All you’ve done is tell me I don’t need to play fair, either,” Arica said, hooking her foot behind Proxy-Barriss's leg, pushing forward into their saber lock and sending the imitation Jedi stumbling back. Arica was relentless, jabbing and driving back her opponent.

“Excellent block, Arica!” Proxy-Barriss said, adopting a Shien stance to deflect in turn.

“Thanks?” said Arica, confused by the droid’s positive reinforcement before she began slamming her saber with astonishingly fast overhead swings. “You just fly around with him- with her, huh?”

“Proxy’s a good challenge,” said Galen.

“Is she?” said Arica, turning to her droid opponent. “Hey! This sentence is false!”

Proxy-Barriss’s holographic covering began glitching, as the droid stammered, “If that sentence is false, then that would mean the sentence is true, which means it is false-”

“Don’t tell him paradoxes, it’s bad for his processor!” Galen exclaimed. “Proxy, end current task and delete the last thirty seconds of audio.”

“Command confirmed,” Proxy said, snapping back to attention. “I have completed calibration and basic analysis of Arica’s fighting style.”

“Calibration?” asked Arica.

“You think that was the best Proxy could do?” asked Galen, eager to hear the analysis. 

“Our new companion’s style is unusual, master,” said Proxy, as Arica suddenly became very focused on him, not having expected to be studied like this. “The aggressiveness of her attacks is unusual, specific movements derived from the basic techniques of Form I and grace of Form II, however the style is such that I cannot confidently place it among the standard forms of the Jedi. It does, however, resemble an amateurish mimicry of Sith methods.”

Now focusing on Arica, Galen found her emotions more difficult to read than ever, and it was difficult to begin with, though being called an amateur made her twitch. There wasn’t anything obvious to sense, but Galen was increasingly doubtful she was an ISB agent.

“Don’t look at me like that, I just did the exercises I was told,” Arica said with a casual shrug, now conspicuously avoiding paying any attention to Proxy.

As long as this ended with him presenting Ahsoka Tano to Lord Vader, he really didn’t care who she was. Though Proxy's description, that she wasn't as strong as she could be, was consistent with her usage of the Force, too.

_Whoever taught her is intentionally keeping her weak. Malleable. Dependent._

“Who trained you?” asked Galen, and Arica suddenly seemed rather tight-lipped. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Since I was given command of the Force, I studied aspects of it from several tutors in conjunction with my ISB training,” said Arica.

“Whatever they told you, that’s _not_ how you use the Force,” Galen said. “The Force opened itself to you, it isn’t given by another person. Whoever’s been instructing you doesn’t know much about the Force.”

Arica was surprised by the intense reaction, and confused by what she was being told.

"And you do?" she asked.

“You can be a lot more powerful than this,” continued Galen. "I'll try to teach you as much as I can before we reach our destination."

"How generous."

Galen shrugged. “The greatest show of power is to empower others.”

“Is that something you learn at inquisitor school?” Arica said, raising an unimpressed eyebrow at him.

“No. It’s something an ancient Sith named Darth Revan said.”

“Never heard the name,” she said dismissively.

“Darth Revan was a powerful Sith, you should learn a little about them,” said Galen, studying Arica critically. Yes, she was smart, and she was good with a variety of weapons. That didn't mean a great deal when the enemy could create enough electric current to power a starship. "Like I said, you can be a lot more powerful than you are now. If this is the best you can manage, you're going to die."

The two of them glared at each other for a long, uncomfortable moment, waiting for the other to speak first.

“I’m taking a break to check our course,” said Arica, heading to the _Rogue Shadow’s_ cockpit with Galen following to keep an eye on her.

“How far has the autopilot taken us?” asked Galen.

“My ship’s navcomputer is still following the tracker, and it’s moved us into the Expansion Regions. Judging from the trajectory, it doesn’t look like we’re going any more coreword... Hey, why do you keep a third chair in here?” Arica asked, noting the movable third seat, not built directly into the floor like the pilot and copilot seats.

“I’m not normally alone with Proxy. I’ve had pilots for the _Rogue Shadow_ , so Proxy would sit there. My- my superiors didn’t approve of their conduct.”

“Were they causing you to fail missions?” asked Arica.

“No, they did their jobs well. The pilots, especially the last one, he was holding me back in my training,” said Galen.

“What? How?”

"I rely on the dark side of the Force. They all became too... friendly," Galen explained, wishing he'd taken greater care not to let the pilots endear themselves to him.

“They were reassigned for socializing with you? That seems excessive,” said Arica.

“It was for the best. Part of my training requires remaining unattached. Having friends made me weaker.”

“Not as weak as you are without a good pilot.”

“You don’t seem like you have many friends, either,” said Galen, wanting to get away from how his master ‘reassigned’ his companions. All the more reason to get this job done and part ways. “If I need a pilot, Proxy’s able to fly the ship.”

“In an emergency, you rely on Proxy. The droid that’s programmed to kill you,” said Arica.

“Well it sounds dumb when you say it like _that_.”

“How would _you_ say it?!”

“Proxy’s my friend, and I know I can count on him,” Galen replied simply.

“Sentiments like that are why I’m glad I don’t have any friends,” Arica replied, returning to the training room and igniting her saber for more practice.

* * *

Mara squared off against Proxy-Ahsoka, finding a new challenge in learning how to effectively fight an opponent wielding two lightsabers, holding her own weapon with both hands and trying to use the greater strength to keep the droid off balance.

“How much lightsaber practice have you had?” asked Fifth.

“This wasn’t the focus of my training.”

“If you had access to the best, why are you falling short?” asked Fifth.

The past few days had been a disillusioning time for Mara. In such a brief period, meeting people very clearly beyond her ability to fight. Fifth’s commentary implied that not only was he stronger than Mara, but Tano and Offee didn’t outclass her entirely due to their greater experience, she was weaker than a Jedi her age would be.

 _~~That's a good question~~_ _. My training is exceptional,_ Mara thought, flinching slightly as her focus returned to the fight, her doubts forgotten.

Fighting against Proxy was... intense, Mara couldn't deny that. It'd taken her a few matches to realize the droid's weapons weren't at a low-power setting, every match was conducted with weapons which could slice an enemy in half with one slip. And Fifth had been training with the droid for years.

That was insanity. One error and Fifth was dead. During _training_ exercises, periods in which mistakes were meant to be permissible and learned from.

_Vader’s out to work him to death._

_Or, Vader is a terrible teacher. Either option makes sense, really._

"It might be helpful for you to see some different forms in action without fighting them," Fifth suggested. “Proxy, could you demonstrate?”

“Certainly,” Proxy said, taking the form of Mara to show her how to move.

“Thanks, Proxy,” said Fifth.

“I am always happy to assist, master,” said Proxy-Mara, and the real one felt slightly irked at seeing the image of herself call Fifth ‘master’. There was only one being in the universe who deserved that level of respect from her, and it certainly wasn’t this inquisitor.

* * *

Proxy managed to knock Arica to the floor, requiring her to raise her weapon and block as Proxy swung his blade down at her, until a glancing stroke sliced through the edge of her saber's pommel. Now defenseless, Arica took no chances, abandoning the restriction of only using sabers and Force-pushing Proxy across the room in a burst of self-preserving terror which Galen considered good progress for her.

“Dammit!” Arica said, frantically shutting her saber off to make it stop smoking and sparking, Galen leaning over and seeing there was a portion of her saber which Proxy had grazed.

“Let me look at it,” Galen said, Arica grudgingly allowing him to inspect the damage. “It’s only the power conductor and some of the case, it can be repaired easily enough.”

“Can it?” Arica said, apparently unfamiliar with the parts, inspecting the hilt of her saber while being very diligent about keeping the emitter tip of the damaged weapon pointed away from herself.

“You don’t know how your saber works, or how to repair it?” Galen asked, incredulous at the difference in expertise compared to her other weapons. “What do you do when it needs repairs?”

“It’s never been necessary.”

“Have a look at mine,” Galen said, and Arica inspected the saber. “Aesthetic is different, but any lightsaber follows the same general design. I can give you new parts to patch it up.”

“This thing looks terrible, no wonder you need to repair yours often and I don’t,” she replied, poking at the weapon. “It looks like you cobbled it together out of scrap. The wires are corroded, this screw isn’t the right threading for the hole...”

“You have higher-quality components?”

“I do, along with tools,” Arica said.

“...Feel like sharing?” Galen asked.

“...Give me a minute,” Arica said with a sigh, leaving the training room and climbing up through the airlock to her freighter. A few moments later, she allowed Galen into the makeshift hangar bay with all the smaller support craft, considering it neutral territory, not letting him near the ship's controls or her living quarters. "Where did you learn so much about lightsaber design?"

“A lightsaber is a personal reflection of its owner,” Galen said, displaying the replacement parts she would need, and a variety of other options. "I built mine years ago."

“Yes, I should've guessed that sooner,” Arica said, studying the Sith's cobbled lightsaber pieces as she held her mostly pristine weapon.

“Did you construct your own lightsaber?” Galen asked.

“No. It was provided to me,” Arica said, Galen noting the continued lack of independence.

"Are there any modifications you'd like to make?"

For about an hour, he instructed her in how to the lightsaber functioned, the purpose of each component. Arica supplied the various bits and bobs of the workbench were used to patch up his lightsaber, new screws, new wires with proper insulations, a whole lot of epoxy to bind cracked parts back together, though he was reluctant to make certain changes. In Arica's needlessly vocal opinion, he should start over from scratch.

* * *

Late into a night of research, Mara found the partnership between Tano and Offee to be a confusing one. Their most significant common experience was Offee’s destruction of a hangar in the old Jedi Temple, followed by framing Tano, which didn't seem a stable foundation for a working relationship. A pity she didn’t execute her plan after evidence of Jedi treason came to light, she may have been hailed as a hero, and it surprised Mara that Offee didn’t appear to have considered cooperation with the Empire.

If she was too foolish or arrogant to choose the right side, so be it. Perhaps once delivered to the Emperor, she could be persuaded.

Nothing in these files explained why, exactly, Tano was working with Offee, other than some assumptions decrying them both as falling under the same label of ‘traitor’ with no regarding to more subtle motivations. The childish oversimplification reeked of Tarkin. Someday, Mara hoped she could convince the Emperor to let her kill Tarkin. He once gripped her chin in an obnoxious manner, now she wanted to cut off his hands and force-feed them to him.

Returning her thoughts to the present mission, perhaps Tano was blackmailing Offee somehow. Or the reverse was true. A great deal could happen in seventeen years. There were too many unknowns for Mara to formulate a decent strategy for dividing her opposition, demanding her to rely on more direct methods, as new ideas for capturing the Jedi came to mind.

Mara felt the new grip sleeve which enclosed her saber. The sleek metal exterior of the weapon had always tended to slip in her hand. It’d always annoyed her, but she’d never thought about it much until now, after she’d modified it. This small personalization, an alteration to her Emperor’s gift, she found it preferable and couldn't deny it was a functional improvement.

* * *

Establishing a secure holonet contact, Galen used the backdoor into imperial records. There was something he needed to understand.

Vader hated the Jedi. He’d never even sent Galen out to kill survivors of the purge because he was so intent on killing every single one of them personally. Why Ahsoka was so special, he had no idea.

Levitating and spinning his significantly sturdier lightsaber above his left hand, a writing pad in his right, Galen wanted to go through everything he knew about Ahsoka again and wasn’t going to rest until he’d come up with at least five new ideas. Right now, he knew Arica’s sonic weaponry would be useful for messing with Ahsoka’s echolocation, and he really should’ve targeted her unarmored shoulders more, so there that left three more.

Fighting Ahsoka had been the toughest mission of his life. The files his master had provided him on the target included information on the Jedi Knight who trained her. Ahsoka Tano had been the apprentice of Anakin Skywalker, but Galen hadn’t thoroughly researched her master. The general had an extensive career, gaining prominence during the Clone Wars as a hero of the Republic, rarely losing a battle. Section after section of text all providing the same basic information. Far more aggressive in his tactics than a typical Jedi. He and Ahsoka were certainly a deviation from the standards of their Order. Nothing so far provided insights that could be used against Ahsoka.

Scrolling through images of the Jedi, Galen paused upon seeing Skywalker's first lightsaber, the one he wielded while still a Jedi apprentice, focusing on it with increasing wariness, trying to confirm for himself that his eyes weren't playing tricks on him.

Aside from differences in color, that saber was identical to Darth Vader’s.

The similarities couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. Lightsabers were something vital to the Jedi, they were all unique, individually designed. Skywalker’s first saber had been destroyed, it couldn’t have been taken and repurposed by Vader as a trophy for killing that Jedi.

For a very long time, Galen stared at the image and wondered if he was reading too far into this, until he recalled the conversation that put him on this assignment.

_‘Bring her back to me.’_

Dropping the pad down on the console, mind spiraling, Galen wondered what this new information meant and what he should do with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry Mara, you're in Galen's world now. All ridiculous fight scenes, all day, every day.
> 
> Mara Jade was created by writer Timothy Zahn, who notably preferred to keep usage of the Force to much subtler powers whenever possible. Then there's Galen, a character conceived to do the exact opposite of that. The juxtaposition is so hilarious to me I almost wish I hadn't nerfed Galen so much, just so I could show Mara's grip on reality break down further and faster. Make her ball up and cry as Galen cuts an AT-ST in half vertically, muttering to herself, refusing to believe this is happening. I have GOT to find Galen something small to Force-punt. *takes long look at Cici*
> 
> For those interested, I've begun another story, [Obsolete Products](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26562130/chapters/64753975), which picks up shortly after TEotS.


	11. Change of Plans

Crackling violet lightning poured from the peak of the Malachor Temple, its superweapon readying itself to fire a petrifying wave as Ahsoka faced her former master, his black cape billowing in the air currents.

“I won’t leave you,” Ahsoka said. “Not this time.”

“Then you will die,” Vader replied, igniting his saber and approaching.

Lightsabers ready, Ahsoka tried to think of something to say, some way of getting through to him, past the darkness and manipulation Palpatine had woven into him, backing away instead of engaging in another fight.

“You said you were not a Jedi,” Vader told her, raising his weapon, ready to strike the instant she dropped her guard. “You certainly fight like one. Unwilling to kill, to do what must be done for victory.”

Gritting her teeth, Ahsoka wasn’t sure how to take a remark like that coming from a Sith, or whether to assert she really had been putting all her strength into killing him and failing at it.

“Anakin, your daughter is alive and I know where she is!” she blurted out.

Vader stopped a few paces away, close enough for Ahsoka to clearly see the astonished expression in the exposed portion of his face. After a moment, he lowered his weapon, but did not deactivate it.

“Where is she?” he said, voice low an disbelieving, restraining his rage.

“She’s on Alderaan,” Ahsoka said, giving up her greatest bargaining chip in a desperate attempt to appeal to her friend. The sounds of the superweapon’s building power seemed to fade out as the two talked. “It’s Leia, their princess. After Order 66, the Organas adopted her to hide her from the Emperor. Anakin, _please_ , come with me.”

“You hid her from me,” Vader said bitterly, keeping his saber raised.

“ _No_ , I didn’t know you were still alive!” Ahsoka said. Vader studied her for a moment, yellowed eye staring back at her. Eventually, it seemed he believed her, deactivating his saber. This seemed like progress, at least, and Ahsoka did the same to deescalate the standoff. 

“My offer was genuine,” Vader said. “Come with me, and you will receive amnesty for your crimes against the Empire.”

“I won't stand back and let the Empire reign unopposed. Not even for you,” she replied. Then Vader began walking away from her towards his hovering TIE. “Where are you going?”

The Sith leapt up to his fighter, turning back to stare down at Ahsoka.

“If you will not join me... then I shall leave you in peace,” he said, words not matching his harsh tone at all as he stepped down into the cockpit, and Ahsoka realized the petrifying superweapon behind her was about to fire.

* * *

“Hey, you know how occasionally we’ve shown up in each other’s dreams? That’s a thing that’s happened to us?” Ahsoka desperately asked a very tired Barriss, who was trying very hard to pay attention after she’d been woken up a moment earlier, and her eyes weren’t focusing well since Ahsoka abruptly turned on the lights. “Because I could _really_ use you as backup.”

“We’ve never done that intentionally. I don’t believe we can reliably control its occurrence,” Barriss groggily said. “I take it your nightmare was of Malachor?”

“Yes,” Ahsoka said, exactly as exhausted as Barriss while also coming up with battle plans. “I need you, to come into my dreams, and help me fight him.”

“Ahsoka, I don’t believe your subconscious fears and trauma can be defeated by calling upon reinforcements to stab them with imaginary lightsabers.”

“Could it hurt to try, though?” she asked as Barriss groaned and sat up.

“Meditation may be more useful to you than sleep at the moment,” Barriss said, her tired eyes shut as she sat cross-legged opposite Ahsoka on their bed, the latter grudgingly following along, starting with breathing control as she often did. Sensing the flow of the Force, trying to keep herself at peace. It worked, a little bit. After moment of peace, Barriss offered Ahsoka her hand.

“What you’re dreaming of Malachor, it cannot occur. Because you’ve left it behind. You’re here, safe, with me,” Barriss said reassuringly, holding Ahsoka’s hand tightly as she had many times before.

“It felt real to me.”

“How much do you recall of the time between your duel and waking up aboard this ship?” asked Barriss, brushing her hand against Ahsoka's lekku. "I saw the illusion you were trapped within. It attempted to draw me in as well.”

Ahsoka chuckled grimly at that. The memory was vague, like a dream, but some of the things the dark side lured her with were stuck in her mind. Feelings of nostalgia for a time when things were simpler. “Yeah, I bet you weren’t thrilled.”

“We are going to win,” said Barriss. “We are going to live past Palpatine’s death and the Empire’s collapse.”

“You’re sure about that?” Ahsoka was pensive, and Barriss understood why.

“We’re going to win,” Barriss repeated with more confidence. “Those assassins will continue pursuing us, we will encounter them again, and we _will_ subdue them next time.”

“I still don’t know what to do about Anakin.”

If things were over and done, even if it was painful, that was one thing, that was something Ahsoka could deal with. Anakin’s death had hit her once already, and she’d mourned him while pressing on, using the teachings she’d learned from him.

Now she knew her master was what she’d been fighting against this whole time.

“Perhaps it would be best for you to acknowledge this is outside of your control. You don’t know what to do because there is nothing to be done,” said Barriss, aware this wasn’t at all what Ahsoka wanted to hear. “I’m sorry I’m not much help, I’m afraid of giving you bad advice. I am not an unbiased source on this matter.”

“What ‘bias’ are you so worried about?” Ahsoka asked, as Barriss sighed and reluctantly explained.

“I do not care for your master, Ahsoka,” Barriss admitted. “I never have. Even when we were all Jedi, I didn’t like his attitude towards the war, I didn’t like what he represented, I didn’t like him on a personal level. And that isn’t important, _your_ feelings are what matter.”

It was always obvious to Ahsoka that Anakin and Barriss had clashing personalities. Hearing the latter state her feelings outright like this wasn't what Ahsoka expected.

“And you never brought up how you felt about Anakin before because...?”

“I believed he was dead! We _both_ believed he was dead! Discussing my negative opinion of him would’ve done nothing but make you feel even more desolated at his absence.”

“Well, I can’t feel any worse now,” Ahsoka replied.

“Then rest,” Barriss recommended. “You’ve already admitted how much better you felt once before. Don’t stop prematurely.”

“You got it, Nurse Barriss,” Ahsoka muttered as she reluctantly lay back down.

“That’s ‘Dr. Offee’, actually,” Barriss corrected, managing to get a smile out of Ahsoka with that one as she tried to get back to sleep.

Learning what Anakin had become was agony for Ahsoka in more ways than one. Following Order 66, she’d been unable to feel that familiar presence, which she’d desperately hoped was some attempt on his part to hide, or a failure of her own connection to the Force, a consequence of leaving him and the Jedi behind. Then she’d discovered apparent confirmation of his death, and the renewed sense of loss set in.

Now that she knew he lived, an entirely new feeling made her shudder. The knowledge that what she’d felt wasn’t an absence of Anakin, but a distortion of him. A distortion that, on Malachor, she’d made a fleeting connection to, and it didn’t want to let her go. It wanted her to stay. It wanted her to follow. It wanted her to die.

Even if it took the destruction of the galaxy, Vader intended to make her obey.

* * *

Today was a typical day for Barriss. Get up, allocate food synthesizers to at-risk cells, do a load of laundry, review counterpropaganda following the Empire’s attribution of Inner Rim embargoes to Rebel activity, delegate the handling of recent Teleros sector convoy raids to Fulcrum Eight, get Ahsoka to change the burned out bulb in the refresher because she’s taller and minor tasks like that make a person feel useful, belay a proposed assassination suggested by the Nivalans because it conflicted with a larger strategic operation exploiting the incompetence of the general in question, polish up her design proposal for droid spy satellites to monitor imperial shipyards, eat a late lunch.

There were times when Barriss wondered what the future held for Ahsoka and herself, a future after the Empire. Perhaps an ordinary house, a place they could relax and find a simpler profession. The more she imagined that, the more she knew such a setting wasn’t livable for them. No means of concealing their identity at the permanent residence. No shields to protect them from a sudden orbital bombardment. No hyperdrive to leave the system as an enemy fleet took control. After everything the two of them experienced, they would never feel safe outside of a ship they could escape in. The events of Moseprous were yet more confirmation that mobility was the key to survival, and the _Eclipse_ had become home over the years.

Pondering the events that caused that feeling, the constant movement from world to world after their childhood home was burned by the Empire, everyone they knew burning with it, Barriss literally and figuratively shrugged at the seeming tragedy of it. As long as they were together, the other details of their living arrangements were inconsequential to Barriss. When the two of them were together, no matter the pressure this struggle put on them, they felt like they were home. Even when apart, the Force made sure they knew the other was safe.

Now there was the issue of how to approach Tsaclyta in light of their narrow escape yesterday. Operational security was compromised because of the dead governor, Barriss was certain of it. Then they remained too close to their target, they never should’ve stayed near the capital city to begin with. Assuming they would continue succeeding purely because they had countless times before, without a careful analysis of causes, would make them sloppier.

They couldn’t remain on the other side of the new planet, security around their current target was too tight. The arcologies scattered around Tsaclyta's surface had practically become prisons for the populace under imperial rule, any way in or out tightly controlled. No hidden caves to land in, they needed to pay for a landing pad. What Barriss would prefer was to switch to a different ship for this mission, but the tracker would then lead the Empire to a hangar of Rebellion ships, and it wasn’t as if they could turn the tracker off and on again without tipping off their shadows that they knew they were being followed.

The _Eclipse_ could take many guises, but if an alert went out to lock down any and all G-Class freighters on the planet, they would be killed. Unless those assassins weren’t aware of the freighter’s holographic coverage, but that was a risky assumption to make. The barriers between them and discovery were becoming weaker, and Barriss needed to reinforce them.

Time to test out the latest holographic coverage, as changing the ship’s apparent model was something Ahsoka had been working on for some time. If that didn’t work, they could always cut their losses and dump the tracker as Barriss planned. This was solvable.

“How about we attach the tracker to another ship inbound to the same location?” suggested Ahsoka. “When they find it, they’ll think we took a new ship there.”

“That wouldn’t make logical sense. Magenta attached the tracker to the _Eclipse_ , if it’s moved, they’ll know that we know they were tracking us,” said Barriss, Ahsoka’s eyes rolling back slightly as she realized the obvious. “We can’t hide the ship, but even with imperial restrictions on how citizens move, we could transit from a moon to the planetside city via public intra-system transport.”

“The key is keeping the _Eclipse_ both close enough to us that we can escape easily, and keep it undetected. Leaving it on one of the moons won’t work.”

“Very well. Let’s review the ship security protocols and see what we can manage,” Barriss said, reviewing what she knew of Tsaclyta’s security procedures for incoming starships.

The _Eclipse_ was full of safeguards such that if anyone unauthorized attempted to access the computer systems, they’d be completely fried by ion charges. There were multiple passwords in the realm of twenty to thirty characters each, all of which were bizarre inside jokes between Ahsoka and Barriss.

In similar events, Cici, on the other hand, would outright explode.

“If they’re slicing into my central processor I’m already as good as dead, and if I’m dying, I’m dying the way I decide: taking everyone in the vicinity with me!” the astromech had explained while installing a sensor-shielded thermal detonator within her chassis. It wasn’t a question of ‘if’ Cici was going to blow herself up, it was a question of ‘when’.

Typing in ‘4ntiGrav1tationalAcklay5’ to unlock secure files, Barriss read the most recent reports on the situation on Tsaclyta, along with maps of their destination. They were cutting things close, but they wanted to meet the rendezvous shortly after arrival so those assassins would arrive well after it passed, rather than show up early and let their shadows time catch up at an inopportune moment.

The tracker was successfully detached, read to serve as a lure, now they needed to select an arena for the second confrontation.

* * *

The city of Stethlus standing to their north was a durasteel conical frustum built up over two centuries into a single structure with diameter twenty kilometers at the base and ten kilometers at the top. It was five kilometers in height, overshadowing every pitiful hill around it, clouds wisping around the mid to top levels. The only reason it wasn’t taller being that with the elevation of the plains it was built on, the atmosphere became dangerously thin beyond its peak. There were other similar cities scattered around the planet built upon foundations within sunken valleys which extended far taller. Descending towards the city in the dim twilight, the mountain of metal presented an imposing silhouette against the orange sunset behind it, the lights of countless landing platforms dotting the outer surface.

Now came time to test out the _Eclipse's_ deceptive abilities. The irregular strokes of paint around the ship's edges representing a star’s corona lacked a regular pattern, which could make it unmistakeable to anyone who knew of it, which was why it could camouflage itself with a more generic paint job concealing the round ship’s black-with-white-edges design, provided by a larger holographic matrix they’d obtained and upgraded over the years. The current system was capable of not only providing a more generic appearance, but it included such options as graffiti and the appearance of wear. Several modular additions, such as removable sensor arrays of different configurations and alternate laser turret designs from related model lines, added to the variety of appearances the vessel could display. The Fulcra occasionally went out of their way to supply G-Class freighters for certain rebel operations where the ship would likely be sacrificed, specifically to provide the Empire with potential false positives of the _Eclipse’s_ destruction, as an added way of confusing Imperial Intelligence.

At the moment, the freighter was bland, imperial grey, with some slight additions to make it appear as the offshoot GS-class rather than the basic G-class. Completely unremarkable, the ship lowered down onto one of the countless landing pads which extended out from the city shell for ships to land, settling in for the stay.

Resting somewhere within the city’s upper shell was the reason they’d come here, an _Arquitens_ -class command cruiser, one of many that had been coming and going from this city, carrying equipment directly to Grand Admiral Zaarin. What this cargo was, whatever he was using it for, finding that out made the operation vital enough for the Fulcra to be hands-on in seizing the ship.

The Fulcrum network took on the responsibility of delivering the ship to the Wolar sector, which was better equipped to integrate the captured ship into its own fleet and hold the officers for interrogation about the grand admiral’s operations. The local cell had been resourceful enough to deduce the cruiser’s significance and arrival time, but they were mostly civilian engineers manufacturing starship components such as engines and hyperdrives, they didn’t have the muscle to take over a cruiser.

 _Perhaps ‘muscle’ isn’t the correct word,_ Barriss noted as she walked past the recharging droidekas towards the boarding ramp.

Now on a new planet, Ahsoka and Barriss activated their personal holographic disguise matrices and stepped down onto the landing pad, as they commonly did to conceal themselves whenever out in the open. Far from a perfect disguise, being a simple palette swap, they were effective at earning dismissal from anyone who’d seen their faces in a criminal database, but never met them personally. Now Ahsoka’s coloration had changed her orange skin to a dull yellow, with the blue portions of her lekku becoming a muted green with rearranged facial markings that would throw off any imperial droids with facial recognition.

Keeping with the pro-imperial appearance, Barriss’s holographic disguise made her fully human, her skin and eyes turned brown, her tattoos absent, with her hair tied back in a tight bun against her usual preference for keeping her head covered when in public. Mirialans were described as an offshoot species, but genetically they were not much different from humans. ‘Not much’ was too far in the eyes of the Empire, so now Barriss was a pro-imperial human cargo captain with her lone Togruta employee who knew not to talk much. This disguise would be maintained in front of the rebels as well, belying their importance in case of information leaks.

With a little bit of distraction courtesy of Barriss toppling over a bunch of crates from several meters away, Cici plugged herself into the nearest terminal and changed their arrival date to last week, one more detail that would make them harder to pinpoint.

Entering the city, the immense structure above them was awe-inspiring and beautiful, the internal supports extending from the ground to support the outer shell holding up thousands of modules branching off like a living organism. The interior was so vast it possessed its own weather patterns, the upper levels disappearing into fog. Somewhere far above them, at the top level was the imperial ubiqtorate base, utilitarian design clashing with the organic design of the city it sat upon. 

The positive impression of the architecture didn’t last beyond a few breaths of polluted air. The design of the city was intended to work with the planetary ecosystem, building living space high and dense rather than covering a large area. Something of a counterpoint to the bio-domes of Mandalore, aiming to prevent ecological harm instead of shielding inhabitants from the devastation that was already outside. Since the Empire took control, it was being repurposed, and while the environment outside hadn’t been seriously affected, manufacture of imperial war machines was producing more waste than the city’s water and air filtration systems were meant to handle, combined with massive amounts of heat generated from the new facilities running nonstop making the interior hot and stifling. The problem was manageable, or it would’ve been, if the Empire hadn’t diverted the people who wanted to manage it towards other tasks. It was also unexpectedly bright. Endless day, keeping work shifts continuous, the production facilities churning out war materiel.

The people of Tsaclyta wanted to resist, now Fulcrum needed to provide the means. Sabotage methods were the most useful application of the local cell. Not very dramatic, but all the parts and ships being manufactured here, if rendered ineffective or prone to malfunctions, would weaken the Empire across numerous other sectors. Exactly what Ahsoka and Barriss accomplished with the AT-AT power generators, except on a much larger scale. Of course the management directly controlling the workers would blame said workers, but so long as it was provable they were the ones at fault, the damage would be done. This was the most aggravating challenge Ahsoka and Barriss faced while undermining the Empire. Attempting to weaken imperial control in a manner that didn’t cause the imperial government to punish the civilian population in retaliation, as the Empire held the people of the galaxy hostage to use against the Rebellion. Conversely, overt displays of destruction against the Empire were used as propaganda pieces against the Rebellion. The idea of a mass uprising was inspiring, had been done before, and ended in untrained civilians with minimal equipment getting massacred.

As they cautiously toured the immense three-dimensional city, a problem with their plans became apparent: last night, the local rebel cell had been uncovered, its leaders executed. Reports of it were being broadcast everywhere. Images on the public screens showed sweeping shots of Tsaclyta’s production facilities, with a voiceover talking about how the local stormtrooper garrison had bravely given summary executions to restrained captives. It was all very inspiring, the narrator promising that with the rebels dead, all the trouble they’d been causing would end and life would improve.

In the distance, one of the modules broke off and plummeted down through the rest of the city, an occurrence which didn’t catch any attention from the people walking around them.

“I guess we didn’t need to worry about leading those assassins to the rebels after all...” Ahsoka remarked in some grim humor before she began sulking, then making an effort to control her facial expressions as Barriss put on a slight smile. There were surveillance droids hovering about, so they’d better look suitably patriotic.

Somehow, operational security failed and their contacts paid with their lives. If the local imperials were aware off-world rebels were due to arrive at this time, the _Eclipse_ may have already been marked as a possible threat, though traffic to and from the planet was high enough not every ship could possibly be investigated. Patiently waiting for the announcement to end, the two rebels walked off to find somewhere secluded they could talk.

* * *

“How do we want to make our exit?” Ahsoka asked, wary of how security arrangements could change to hold ships here, and whether the local rebels could’ve revealed the arrival of outside help, either through information leaks or through torture of captured members. “We need a plausible reason, if we take off minutes after arriving, it will be obvious we’re fleeing. We could agree to some small freelance work, load the cargo into the _Eclipse_ , and get moving. Better something we would actually deliver to our next objective, though we could sacrifice our current aliases and steal some minor shipments from the Empire.”

“We’ve used these aliases enough times to near the end of their reliability, and larceny against the Empire would make for a good finale,” replied Barriss, knowing that the same pair of freelancers showing up amidst rebel activity would eventually get noticed. “I’d also like to find survivors, if some remain. The ISB or whoever located the cell are likely in the process of tracking down any members who escaped. That will be our starting point.”

“If any are left, they must be terrified of being found,” Ahsoka said, think on what she knew of the cell, and reaching out with the Force. Trying to zero in on terrified locals to find hidden rebels was useless, _everyone_ in this place was mildly on edge as a baseline. The mission had changed from the spearhead of sabotaging military research projects to the rescue of scattered rebels who would be trying not to be located by anyone.

“We combine the rescue with the original plan,” said Barriss. “We’re stealing that cruiser, and the remains of the local cell will be evacuated aboard it.”

“Undermining imperial propaganda in the process,” Ahsoka added, wanted to make the successful theft as public as possibly. “Okay, we’re separated and need consistent cover stories. I’m out searching for repair parts we need for the hyperdrive,” Ahsoka said, typing out a short list of items they supposedly needed.

“And I am searching for potential clients among the upper levels near the ubiqtorate base,” said Barriss. With a holographic disguise, it became easier for Barriss to perform infiltration missions into imperial facilities. No amount of holograms could convincingly disguise Ahsoka’s head, while being a nonhuman made other Rebels more inclined to believe Ahsoka was on their side, even though she normally discouraged immediate trust on that basis alone. The Empire had means of twisting people it harmed into working to its benefit. “What should be done with the tracker?”

“You should hold onto it, stow it somewhere until you have what you need. If it’s with me, I’d just be leading them to more victims.”

Ahsoka let Barriss take public transportation into the upper levels and get to work sabotaging the ubiqtorate base, leaving Ahsoka to ride on her own swoop bike to the original rendezvous. Even by Ahsoka’s standards coming from a childhood on Coruscant, this enclosed city was huge, extending for kilometers in every direction around her, countless modules affixed to the support beams extending down from the outer shell. The destination chosen for the meeting was one of the few places two people could publicly meet in this city without being questioned by stormtroopers, a small public park. It was schedule to be demolished next week.

Checking the time, Ahsoka considered the possibilities. If her intended contact was captured and killed, she’d need a new plan. The assassins would be here before long, though Ahsoka was confident Barriss could evaded them easily enough with a few hundred cubic kilometers of city to hide in. 

If the contact lived, whether or not they’d be able or willing to show up was questionable. If Ahsoka wasn’t kept waiting, there was the problem of how to get everyone onto the cruiser when they stole it, especially accounting for the possibility that one of the cell’s own people betrayed them, and might be coming along. If the contact believed they'd been betrayed, Ahsoka wasn’t sure how to prove herself trustworthy, even knowing her half of the code phrase. Appealing to the desperation they were definitely feeling could certainly move things along.

She parked her swoop bike, and began patiently walking around, trying to look busy as stormtroopers passed her by.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the shortcomings I found in TEotS is that I never really show just how awful life under the Empire is for many people. I kinda justified it that it all takes place in the first year of Palpatine's rule and things haven't really solidified, but I wanted to make Tsaclyta a real authoritarian hellhole. I pretty much asked myself "What if a fascist government took an entire hyper-advanced city and turned it into an Amazon warehouse?" and worked from there.


End file.
